Camera Angles
by Donrocs1
Summary: It started out with just sitting in some old dusty office, watching a tablet, getting creeped out by walking, robotic Chuck-E-Cheese wannabes, and shoving the doors in their faces whenever they reared their mugs. It was simple! Supposed to stay simple! And then that didn't work out so well in a week. Innocent part-time job, to demon slayer. And don't forget the tea. (Fem-Foxy)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.

Mouse Trap for The Unemployed.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"To sweep a camera left and right is an automated process done by the device's mechanisms. But to catch what it scans with motioning human vision, that's the trick with anybody browsing the feeds."_**

**_-Writ 1 of Surveillance_** .

The bone-chilling blare of an active electronic device, that spelled the doom for morning snooze- filled the entire room in a millisecond-precision of timing to extract an- previously unknowing -victim from rest.

When the screech of the roused alarm clock reached a height insurmountable, a pale hand snatched out from beneath flapping linen- wrapped fingers over the top of the device -and heaved the block of plastic far enough that it silenced with a horrible clack against the opposite wall.

A grunt, sifting of tossed sheets, and the gradual sheen of sunlight invading the cracks of his closed window shades became seeable through the drowsy haze of a good DAY's sleep- seeing as those hues had been there upon his first trip to bed.

He had nocturnally passed the day away, all in preparedness for a new occupation- a way to make quick, and easy coin for his singular maintenance.

Despite the grueling boredom that had followed him in the hours of dusk, he could say he was all too happy to NOT complain. All that mattered was that he was paid to sit in an office, listen to a rattling rusty desk-fan, and stare at a tablet to watch for whatever the boss said to watch for.

Literally, he was a security guard with nothing to guard from, or guard in general.

He had scoffed the mere idea, with doubts of pay and actual consideration for it being logical. Not only was it free money, but the place of establishment was in the middle of... Well, nowhere. Really.

And, on top of that- the place was old, REALLY old- the looks alone would scare away most would-be intruders. Yet, if the stereotypical appearance of every abandoned warehouse in horror movies didn't send the burglars packing- then the NAME would.

'Freddy's Pizza'- long past its age of popularity. Forgotten, frankly presented in a spooky outlook- the CPS would probably want a talk with any parent who willingly brought their kids there.

It wasn't as atrocious on the inside... But, man, there were rafters hanging off of places and hinges UN-hinged- for a children's pizzeria, the building was externally a waste dump. That was the kind description.

But Phillip Linn was kind of used to the idea of non-perfection- he was not to complain, as explained -it could be a lot worse. The building was old, no one went there anymore and it smelled funny, but the manager wasn't a complete jerkweed and it was easy.

Piece of cake.

Indeed, Phillip Linn- fathered by the late man of the same name, unaware of his mother's identity- was a solitary guy with very little familial backstory, or interest in his own origin.

He was alone, he lived in a medium sized home in the wooded suburbs of his state and town. He was young, mid-twenties, striking lad. He was a creator- he liked writing historical tales -pottery, and physical crafts that were for a select few with a knack.

He didn't talk much with others, and some days he believed that insanity was setting in from his isolation as without need for much money in his cheap costs of living. His father had left him the house- it was paid for -his art provided a lot of freelance cash. Simple layout.

That was why this job... This excuse to sit somewhere other than the confines of his home- was not just for the extra green, but just a way to get out more. Heck knew, he needed the time outside.

Flinging out of his bed- limbs all over the place -he threw a T-shirt on -slid over that a padded vest with the applied letters SEC on the top breast corner in white. A little cap came with the set up, he joked about his comedic appearance when he put it on.

Going downstairs, Mr. Linn drained a cup of orange juice- put on a jazz song from the music channels on his television in the living room- he ate a bowl of cereal (Despite it being dusk)- and stepped outside onto his porch after setting a home defense alarm.

Locking the door, turning briskly- he frowned a bit at the dark, near abandoned street that his home faced, and strode purposefully to his driveway.

Sitting there waiting for his arrival was an old Ford model car- painted blue, the specifics of its year and manufacture went dim on him years ago. He pulled out his keys, slid it into the door, opened and sat down.

The engine purred- he gazed over his shoulder to start backing out.

The security guard with nothing to guard from, was on his way for the start of a game, if you will.

It was a very simple game- it involved a lot of camera angles at first -but later, it would turn into something no one could have ever expected. Least of all Mr. Linn.

As he drove down the forest-lined highway- criss-crossed the sideroads to reach said highway- Phillip became reminded of how grim, dull, and foreboding the building came off as when in broad view.

If Phil hadn't been properly informed- he might have mistook it for a Cartel hideout.

Well, at least- like he already knew -it would ward off stupid kids from trying to make off with the precious reserves of cheese and holy sauce that obviously were hidden within the pizzeria's depths. Why ELSE would somebody hire a guard for the stationary train-wreck that was 'Freddy's Pizza'?

The manager was an odd fellow- had a thing for talking real explanatory-like -an anti-social old man that had a squat stature about him. The dude had become ecstatic when Phillip volunteered for that particular station.

Phil had a done a few odd-jobs for the staff there- which by this point were two janitors, and the old man, and that was it.

The old man had come to like him though- he hired Phillip right on the spot when he queried about the adds he'd read in the paper.

Humming at that thought- Phillip flicked his signal to turn right, on with his car- slowly spiraled underneath the shadows of the foreboding woods that concealed the pizzeria from passerby's reactionary nightmares.

His car settled across a lot of black asphalt- illuminated by a mere few street lamps that were on the edges of the pavement block, and by the front door of the establishment. Freddy's Pizza sat there like a blocky lump in the center. Menacing.

Phillip laughed at himself when it came to that dramatic of adjective- he parked between the slot of two white lines -frowned in astonishment at how fast the night reinvaded the space his headlights once lit up in twin cones.

It seemed a tad unnatural. In fact, the air itself felt a little... Mottled, he'd say.

Meh. No big deal.

Stepping out of his car, he surveyed the surrounding lot- shivered, shut his door and locked the car, stepping up across the sidewalk and to the steps layering before the front entrance.

A decorative archway curled up and over the door- molded from lack of maintenance, the words 'FREDDY'S PIZZA!' drew below the disturbing visage of the demented looking cartoon bear himself. He was sprung behind the title, leaping with joy- the whole thing just screamed about secret plots to find the viewer in their sleep.

Another trick of his mind to a harmless children's character.

But could you blame him? The children's characters ALWAYS turned up as the sadistic killers in the horror games on his laptop.

Frowning at the image painted up there- he felt the key creak through the opening lock of the door, he inside and shut the entry with an arc behind him.

**_THWAK!_**

**_THWAK..._**

**_THWAK..._**

Indenting his brows, he startled in a bit of a jump.

Holy son of the lord, the place was THAT empty?

He spiraled to view the recently cleaned, dining area of the place, tables polished for the thousandth time and failure to remove the crusted pizza remnants that were older than he.

The janitors always cleaner-nuked the rooms to eviscerate the nasty marks that invaded pretty much every table and counter in the building- and all they succeeded in doing was making the whole place smell like you were sticking your nose in a Windex bottle.

He snorted in a half-sneeze- gazing by the long tables, the stacked chairs lining both walls of the room, and the ones pushed underneath the dining furniture.

A wooden stage sat dominant in the hanging backdrop over the eating area-it held three blocky, humanoid shadows that appeared the most imposing things Phillip had ever seen.

A purple haired rabbit, a bird, and the bear- all mechanical, matted-furred monstrosities built to provide some terror-induced mockery of physical reality for the characters they depicted.

The rabbit had the stupidest name, by what the old man had said- Bonnie -really, who thought that was a good idea to name the GUY character? What a croc.

He was ugly, a mouth full of fat molar teeth, jaw slack and moldy arms holding a desecrated banjo instrument that looked too small even for a dwarf- he had purple colored eyes that lazed in his metal cranium.

Chica- the yellow furred chicken -arguably was worse. It was fat, bulbous, matted with stains and quite displeasing to behold. She stood there in the drunken silence all robotic contraptions designed for entertainment did.

Centered between the two of them- was none other than Freddy -the character the pizzeria was named after. Brown, mildew-encrusted fur held barely on a body of rusty metal and poorly kept joints. There were brown run stains down his mouth and chest.

The three animatronics always freaked him out whenever he came inside the place to help the old man with something. They just... BOTHERED him.

The manager's comment of their 'Nosiness' must have set that off. He never directly said it, but Phillip was worried about this idea of convincing him that the things moved.

Luckily, the manager's mental breakdowns weren't part of his problem. This was easy pay- averaged out to minimum wage every week for his time, to stare at the nightmare fuel all night.

Cool stuff.

Phillip ran his hand through his short hair- putting the cap back on for his 'Uniform' if that- afterwards to start strolling between two of the tables. The doors ahead led to the rear compartments of the pizzeria- the kitchen, bathrooms and storage areas, the works.

The office was all the way in the back, it was long and rather unnerving walk through the bowels of the pizzeria.

All the walls here were in rough condition- almost as bad as outside -plastic decorations meant to look like pizza slices were falling off of the plaster they had been adhered too. Dark doors lead to the kitchen- one lead to the basement, and the old man let NO ONE down there.

That tidbit... Actually bothered him more, at the moment. What was down there? Maybe the old man was a complete freak and kept pornographic magazines stashed in a trunk.

He chuckled at that thought.

The office doorframe came up- he clenched the rim with one hand and ducked inside. The old, dusty desk stood by the front, detailed with a wheeled chair and topped by a rusty fan that rattled as the head moved back and forth slowly.

Raising his lower lip- he stepped inside fully, noting these big, fat gray buttons on the doorframes- two on each side. One labeled 'DOOR', the other 'LIGHT'.

Squinting in suspicion- he scooped up the silver-colored slab- the tablet -lade in the seat of the roll-chair for him. He pulled up the main screen, remembering the brief overview the old man had given him.

He checked the battery symbol for the pizzeria's generator- the one behind the stowage closet in the rear of the office- evident by a single, locker-like door that jutted from the wall there. It was green.

Reaching over, he pressed the 'LIGHT' key on the frame to the right- holding -and flinching when a wheeze of ozone hummed outside the door, illuminating the hall outside eerily. He looked back at the battery, still keeping the light on.

'98' the battery changed too, from '100'.

Hold the phone-

"...WHAT?" Phillip snapped. "What does the power company siphon all the electricity from this dump? Specifically at NIGHT?!"

Turning dramatically- he whipped out his phone, and hurried to the desk.

"Stop RIGHT there..." He grumbled, yanking a few drawers, and finding a roll of duct tape. "Oh hell no. I'm not even dealing with this..."

He tore the metal door to the generator compartment open, and started typing on the phone.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Wiping sweat from his brow, Phillip sat back as the generator in the back of the office thrummed in a somewhat healthy display of mumbling, and he snatched the wire-box shut again.

He smiled, and patted the side of his phone musingly.

"Thanks Wiki-Help..."

Stepping back towards his chair, he bent to retrieve the tablet, and flipped through several of the camera feeds of the rooms on the grayscale view.

Normally, Phillip wasn't searching for the sort of 'Abnormalities' that would soon become commonplace in his screwed up week- but tonight, when he saw the feed for the stage, something caught his eye.

Snapping to look up at the right door, the one he'd come from, he saw a disfigurement in the shadow through the arch, and he felt tempted to hit that 'LIGHT' key on the frame again.

Oh crap.

Pretending to be oblivious, he kept one eye on the shape, and flipped through all the cameras, he checked all the entrances, and found them undisturbed.

So then, who/what was outside the-?

"Where's quackers?" He muttered, doing a last sift through the rooms, even Pirate Cove- the one chamber series the old man never let anyone in -with its closed curtain still hiding the 'Off Limits' thing his manager wouldn't allow him to see.

He stood and stepped over to the door, squinting, before flicking the light button.

He yipped in surprise from the ajar mouth of- indeed -the giant chicken. Chica's matted fur was mottled in the light, she stared in the office interior's general direction aimlessly, posed to enter. Now THAT wasn't normal, these things weren't supposed to be wandering around because of robotic systems... Especially not lying in wait for him to stop looking.

Phillip gulped, reading the 'LET'S EAT!' on her bib, before he angled closer to the door switch.

"Alright, let's eat..." He growled.

**_CLICK_**

**_THUNK!_**

"Hope you like door."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The silent treatment had gone pretty well for awhile, but now that Phillip's suspicion was up, he noticed that dreary blotch, outside the now closed doorway, but from the window next to it.

He felt an eye twitch, and he rolled his chair over to flick the lights there on again.

The chicken grinned back at him through the flash.

Once again, he jumped in fright from the scene, huffed angrily.

"Would you just... GO AWAY!" He made a shooing motion, finding himself a tad crazy for talking to the robot. The old man must have wearing on him.

When she didn't move, he growled and flipped his hand upwards- middle-digit protruding in its facing center -before rolling the chair back to the center of the office. He didn't need to be prim and proper in here either way.

Still, this whole thing with the bird kind of scared him. They weren't supposed to move. Not that like.

Checking the tablet again, he disregarded the stage and the chicken's freakish friends that still stood immobile on its base- hedid notice the curtain at Pirate Cove had shifted a tad. He squinted at the screen, seeing what appeared to be a curved lip of metal- a sharp tip of some sharp object, jutting from the curtain's parting.

There was ANOTHER of these psycho killer, walking Sega rejects there TOO?

Phillip swallowed, and glanced to the window again.

"Oh for God's sake..." He stood bolt upright, taking the time to check the other door, before he stomped over to the window, leaned over the desk, and still saw the outline of the deranged chicken.

Now keep in mind, that Phillip Linn was an innocent member of the United States workforce- thus, logical explanations were something he prided himself on, and relied on when countered with situations in and out of labor.

There wasn't a process going through his head, along the lines of - 'The boogeyman's out there! I gotta' be CAREFUL!' -Because to Phillip, the boogeyman wasn't real. He didn't exist.

So, living monsters inside a children's pizzeria? Existing? PAH! HA! That, was a good one!

Nah. That was the garbage parents drabbled to restless babies. Yet, years later looking back on it... Why he did, what he did, always evaded his sense of reason later on in life.

His fist hit the door button, and the structure of metal vanished above into the slot of the ceiling- as he stepped partially into the hall, sneaker crossing the line of illuminated office, and shadowy hall.

"Stupid gear-head..." He snapped lowly, and went about looking for a pair of gloves to physically push her back to the stage if needed.

He didn't want to touch the thing... But if it ran into a box, keeled over, and cracked open like a computer tower being dropped from a roof- Phil would have some explaining to do at how he had murdered Daffy-Duck's inbred cousin.

However, when a disturbance echoed down the hall from a source, that was relatively close to him- he stopped everything he was doing, and went still. It sounded like something alive. An animal, maybe? What was this now?

Had someone gotten inside? Who would rob this place?!

It was a deep thrum- had a gurgling reverberation too it.

He stopped dead, back turned to the animatronic.

Not good.

The sound repeated, and he could deduce where the point of origin was.

Well, guess the theory of them not being possessed, all of the BUPKISS talk about how logic applied here- just flew down the toilet.

He turned to the thing, slowly, turtle-like, and saw that the head- frighteningly -was facing his direction.

A moment of silence, and his feet began to carry him to the office.

_Just take it slowly... No sudden-_

"OHMYFRIGGINJESUSHELPME!"

This was all in a rush.

Phillip Linn- solitary, striking lad with no life outside his crafts whatsoever- felt his heart get caught in his throat, when the impossible happened.

The bird animatronic extended its wing-like arms in his direction- joints creaking, hisses of static leaving its nasty maw- it opened and it screamed like a murderer in a horror movie the most terrible cry he'd ever heard, before its ragged feet pumped towards him.

Phillip flipped like a cartwheeling school-girl, tumbled back inside the office and dove for the door button.

He was a tad too slow, and the monster wailed in his face, its BREATH, of all things, smelling of death and dust. He screeched like a child, and he grabbed the first thing he could think of nearby...

**_CLANK!_**

The rusty fan shattered over the thing's head, and the pieces skittered everywhere off of him, it, and the floor. The crazed demon bird staggered back, and, feeling bold, he jabbed his heel out in a jerk, putting a shoe-mark on its gut before he slammed the door down.

Growling and gurgling outside, before staggered, frustrated steps carried the thing away.

A look of shock, dismay, questioning of reality, permanently masked his features, and, mouth still agape, he ran over to the other side of the room, tripping over his chair as he went, and snapped the light on.

He screamed again when the purple hare of death grinned back at him, and that door sealed off too.

Phillip shook, quaked, and whined like a fearful mutt, he scrambled across the floor for the tablet and turned it on.

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN, 4 AM?!" He shrieked. "-I'M GONNA DIE AND YOU CAN'T MAKE TIME GO BY FASTER?!"

He cycled the camera images again, seeing the killer chicken and even her rabbit partner had positioned on the stage again beside the rabid bear. He shook a little with relief.

They had moved. And they had moved AGAIN!

The other rooms proved empty, and the cursed curtain of the cove had sifted a little more.

Just barely audible in the trench of shadow was the pair of eyes behind the thing, the curving implement of metal he'd saw before- coming out more in an experimental stick.

Phillip groaned in regret.

No wonder that frag-job of an owner hired him, he was the latest victim! The next toss into the demonic food bowl!

He was going to KILL the wrinkled bastard when this was over... If he LIVED, of course.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It was 5 am, and Phillip watched as the rabbit/chicken kill team stalked outside the windows in intervals- shadows sifted, hollow footsteps rebounded. He curled tighter in his chair, repeatedly checking the tablet for the time.

This was insane, he was trapped in his own office by man-eating animatronics, and the manager was apparently some sick ringleader. It was either a thousand dollar raise, or he was quitting... AFTER beating the crap out of the manager first, of course.

Sweat dripped off of him, and he somehow wished that annoying fan- that now was in pieces on the floor -was here to work as it always did, at least there'd be SOME form of idle noise in the deathly quiet office.

He wiped his forehead.

If only he had seen this fine-text of being taken up on the spot, Phillip found himself chastising his previous thoughts of this 'Easy' job. This wasn't boring and uneventful anymore, this was a matter of his being ripped apart by apparently demonic animatronics.

The cameras flipped through each room with speed, his finger dancing across the screen with hurried flicks. All of his prior problems, three to be exact, continued their lingering in every corner of the place, and every now-and-again, their eyes would be turned to the lens of the camera observing them.

Phillip had never been a pyro in his life, but he wished he had a flamethrower, like, NOW.

"I'd burn your asses..." He growled subconsciously. "Then, for good measures I douse the singing ashes in holy-wate-OHSHIT!"

The young man stood bolt upright when he watched Pirate Cove again, the only room the other animatronics were avoiding, and he had a good idea why that was.

When he saw the ajar curtains, the out-of-order sign pushed aside, the growing darkness that once housed whatever fourth, final monstrosity lived in here- seeming to mock him that the last butcher was on its way -Phillip almost soiled himself. ALMOST.

Patting his backside to check anyway, he swallowed, and swung his gaze to the left door.

**_THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP_**

"Oh, not good, not good, NOT GOOD!"

Sprinting to the door, the rapid-paced footfalls outside the hall ceased -and he would've felt relief if it WASN'T ceasing the noise right outside the door.

He squeaked like a fearful toddler, shifting forwards all at once, he compressed himself to the door's metal fully, arms splayed in a backwards embrace-

Though, there was a conundrum- as, these doors opened into the ceiling... How could he barricade it if the thing outside could just lift?

Right as his brow raised to his own ignorance, his world rushed past as whatever flung the door open tossed him a foot away into the OTHER metal entry. A loud bang of impacted metal, and the poor, unsuspecting guard's body flattened, and stuck, to the now dented horizontally opposite entry for a good ten seconds, before he crumpled to the floor silently.

"Ow..." Phillip muffled into the concrete.

A pealing sound of pressed skin was heard as he detached his face from the ground, shook his head, and stumbled towards the tablet beside his toppled chair.

"Must... M-make sure... Others, didn't..." He uttered between the pain in his skull. "-MOVE."

However, just as Phillip apprehended the tablet, shook it to light the screen again, his finger came to a grinding halt midway to the surface, his eye twitched, his mind went blank. He just recalled the reason why he was partially delirious, and for that -he was no LONGER delirious.

He snapped up to look at the frozen animatronic in the doorway, and he let his jaw clench as the monster resembled a deer in headlights. Honestly if the thing wasn't so... Beat up, there wasn't another word he could make at the moment -it might have been an interesting sight.

It resembled a vulpine, a fox, more so- its ears were suspended via stilt-structure from openings in its head, a ragged eye-patch covered a still-present right eye, and its fur looked matted in some areas, material was torn away to reveal coppery machinery beneath.

The fox blinked with metal-looking lids to him, and cast a quick glance about the office.

Phillip wasn't breathing this whole time, but, despite his panicky, rushing mind- he figured if the thing wanted to kill him, it wouldn't beat-around the bush with a 'Nice Oblivious' treatment- these animatronics seemed just right to the point- it would have torn into him already.

With a gulp he noted its right wrist ended in a hook- kind of like what the pirates in old movies had, a sickly parody of something Black Beard would've had on his wrist.

When it noted his staring, what could be described a darker hue took on its face, and the hook gradually lost sight behind its hip.

Speaking of hips, for an ugly, hell-induced, mindless killer, a brute, the animatronic seemed very... He wanted to say GIRLY, but he supposed the professional term was FEMININE.

Damn him and his intellectual ways.

Phillip felt his knees struggle as he stood, both from kneeling for so long, and from fear- as he did so, the animatronic jumped a bit, and took a step out of the doorway.

He took a step back himself.

"U-uh..." He swallowed, and found his speech not working. "-Um-H-Hiii-" He slapped a palm over his mouth at his attempted greeting.

Holy God, he sounded like that alien cartoon character, Stitch, that he watched as a child! That was just creepy, and the last thing he needed was to provoke this... CREATURE, before him.

Ironically, to his shock, the fox drew back its mechanical chops, upwards, and... SMILED. A shifting sound matched its lightly bucking shoulders, and the hook it had pressed to the tip of its snout before it stopped short, eyed the hook, and reapplied the metal prosthetic behind itself again.

Good grief it GIGGLED at him?!

What now, impending murder was CUTE to them?

Even if that sort of vibe wasn't emanating from the particular fox facing him, it certainly gave off enough display from its outside appearance. Obviously, the old lessons his mother taught him of 'Never Judge of Book by its Cover' just HAD to end up helping in a near death instance, right?

Seriously, this beat-up, decrepit and dirty animatronic could come off as a serial killer in an animal suit if it/he/she, whatever it was- didn't come to this strange understanding, or whatever you'd call this.

Nevertheless, Phillip got past a minute amount of the shock/fear factor, and took the time to size the neutral beast up.

Quite, it had the hips of a full younger female, a human woman which... Kind of creeped him out. It could've been a young lady under the suit, who knew?

Its torso was curved, in an hourglass figure, whatever form of torso distinction that existed or didn't on its chest was obscured, heavily so beneath a thrice-wrapped seal of medical tape, probably something scrounged from an office.

Now convinced it was a female, Phillip took a steady breath, and figured he was at least a TAD lucky ONE of the four freaks wasn't trying to eat him.

With frozen, defensively posed arms- he stumbled slowly to his chair, pretending the fox wasn't staring at him the whole time, held his tablet firmly, and creaked the suspension as he sat. Taking a glance at the idle appearing animatronic every now and again, he flicked the camera visions one after the other, and found the three hadn't moved, and it was around 5:35 at night.

Just... TWENTY-FIVE minutes... Thank the lord...

Leaning back with a sigh of relief, he felt the sudden enwrapping feeling of warmth and fuzziness to be soothing more than anything, and a satisfied grin of relaxation formed on his face-

Hold the phone-

Fuzzy? Warm?

His eyes snapped open, bulging.

Filling his vision to the gap was nothing but darkened red/orange fur, a patch of which was gone to show a internal piston beneath. He twitched, and didn't bother to meet the fox's quick glance to his face, scalp pressed to her belly, before she returned to gazing curiously at the tablet's screen, claw and hook leaning to the chair's top.

Phillip couldn't move, and the fox seemed to sense this, as she backed away to stare silently.

The chair creaked again, relieved from her weight, and stopped in the center of the office, Phil moving without resistance to the chair's rolling travels like Stephen Hawking cruised around on his automated wheels.

His vision locked to the fox- the animatronic shifted on its feet, and crossed its arms over itself in a somewhat self-protective gesture. A raspy vocalized parody of what resembled speech, made him jump upright to gaze at the ajar left door fearfully.

At first, he thought it was the gurgling chicken or the rabbit, but when nothing turned up, he looked at the fox again to see its bolt-hinged jaw quivering a little, its voice sounded like a hissing, broken speaker from an old Matchbox car dropped on the floor too many times by a toddler.

**_"H-Hell-hell-o..."_**

A spark of electricity jumped from a joint on its chest, and with an annoyed huff, she reared back with a bunched fist.

Phillip tightened, and then, the miraculous happened.

**BEEP BEEP BEEP**

**BEEP**

**BEEP BEEP BEEP**

**BEEP**

The guard's eyes swung to the tablet as the God-sent 6 am marking flashed to his screen innocently.

A smile on his face, and when he looked up to possibly see the end result of a monster caught in the sun, like catching fire or melting or something, he was greeted with an empty office, the gradual patter of softening footfalls down the hall.

A bird chirped outside.

With a heavy twitch- Phillip frantically grabbed his things, stowed the tablet, opened the doors, and ran through the lobby to the main entrance- he didn't even LOOK at the stage.

He locked the door, and stepped into his car, sitting in the driver's seat.

A moment more of quiet, and he started at the vehicle's dashboard, eyed the building again. Coughed. Straightened his uniform.

And SCREAMED.

He screamed so loud in that stupid 1980 Ford, that if there were people anywhere near that lot, they would have heard him. He screamed to the point he hacked and lost his voice the rest of the morning, and still, a raspy air-sound left his gapped, rattling jaws for another five minutes.

The car backed out with a screech of rubber on pavement, and barreled out to the road.

Phillip didn't leave his locked room all day at home. When the mailman came with a package, he was asked by a idle, dead-sounding man from an ajar second-floor window to leave it at the stoop. When he did so, he got back to his truck only to hear the door snap open, and two quaking hands snag the package inside.

A click of a lock, thudding of impacted stairs, and the same second floor window slammed shut.

That locked too.

The mailman uttered curses upon believers in the apocalypse and stopped at the next house with three letters in hand.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2.

I'm Still Here, Problem? Talk to my Attorney.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "It appears a spec is on the lens outside. Send the rookie to remove it. Why you ask? Because big problems come in small packages, or, in this case, blind spots."_**

**_-Writ 2 of Surveillance. _**

Darkness always was a welcome thing at bedtime, it kept you asleep, allowed your mind to wander while you snored like an running truck in the muffled confines of a pillow, and it just had this aura of quiet that took away from daily stress.

Normally, he appreciated darkness during sleep.

Normally, he found it easily bypassed during the day.

However, NORMALLY, Phillip wasn't quaking in terror to the possibility of an evil, demonic, robotic stuffed animal coming from under his bed and tearing him apart.

In the end, he had been forced to drug himself in order to rest, basically, having slipped three herbal pills down his throat with a quaking hand that made more of his cupped water end up on his shirt than in his mouth. He choked on at least one of the pills, hacked it up where it stuck to the mirror of the bathroom, and he'd scraped it off and retaken it anyway.

His mind was fuzzy when he woke that morning, so by the time he finished inspecting his house for animatronic murderers, swallowed a cereal bar in one bite, and was awake enough to see his job started in three hours, the antics of attempted rest were forgotten.

The first thought in his mind was how he could possibly survive in that dump again, now that the furry freakjobs KNEW he was working there, they were bound to up-the-attack the more he showed. And besides, why in hell's name would he go back?!

Blatantly, you'd have to be some moron to simply put a dumb grin on your face, shrug, and waltz back inside the pizza-palace-o' death, with the saying of 'Oh well! Times are hard!'

Yeah, YEAH! Times are hard you piece of rotten garbage! REALLY hard! Especially with your body being torn to shreds and you slowly bleeding to death while you WATCH monsters EAT YOUR INTERNALS! YEP! Difficult cycles to put god-damned bread on the table, RIGHT?!

WHO NEEDS ORGANS ANYWAY?! I GOT A CHECK FOR MININUM WAGE! I'M VALUED!

Dang his conscience and its mental rants.

"Frag you karma ," Phillip growled as he slammed the door to his car. "And up-yours economy."

He was going to have a word with this... This MANAGER, as he called himself, about what it meant to have your face broken. For, by the time Phillip pulled into the parking space of the joint, his tires screeched to a halt inches before the curb.

Snatching hold of his uniform, he dashed for the door, fists pumping by his sides.

"BOSS!" He barked, the door swung aside, revealing the emptied internals of the building, the same menacing threesome standing idle on the stage.

"Boss get out here!"

Phillip waited another minute before the rather short, and pudgy little old man rounded the corner from the kitchen in the back, he rubbed his ear with an annoyed expression.

"Your yelling why? Precisely?"

"BECAUSE YOU ALMOST GOT ME EATEN!"

Phillip even surprised himself with how loud he belted his boss, and the old man flailed like a piece of newspaper caught in a bad breeze while stuck to a streetlamp.

He blinked, shook his wrinkled head to clear it, and gazed towards the animatronics.

"Eaten, you say?" The manager muttered.

"YES! TORN TO PIECES! FEASTED ON BY THE SONS OF HELL!"

"Quite prophetic, Mr. Linn! You should by the new scribe for Freddy's-!"

"OOOOOHHH NO," The rabid security guard snarled. "-You aren't hood-winking me with any more paranormal paratrooper jobs, you prune!"

If phased by his insults, the old man didn't show it, he simply rubbed the stubble beneath his chin, adjusted the belly-button high trousers he wore, and jabbed a finger to the animatronics.

A disappointed expression worn his face, and he seemed to be chastising the robots, not PHILLIP.

"I expected they'd be dormant for some time..."

"WH-WHAT-I-?!" Phillip stammered, shook like an after tremor of an earthquake, and stopped himself with a heave of breath.

He cleared his throat, and regained composure.

"You better start talking before you see the inside of your own skull via my fist."

"Calm down, Mr. Linn, I'll walk you through..." The manager whispered the last part, a brow raised to the animatronics. "-In DETAIL."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Their old, Mr. Linn, VERY, very old. My retired engineer, all the way in Chicago, believed the actual suits were pieced together around the 50's, though which exact date or," Phillip's boss shook his head, and smacked an old newspaper down on the roof of his desk. "-Precisely who, or WHAT, did that piecing together, I couldn't tell you."

At least Phil had calmed down a bit more, and sipped an iced coffee the manager insisted he have for free, he nodded to the newspaper clipping on the cluttered desk from his stance in the chair facing it.

The office was small, walls covered in dusty, aged World War 2 and Swing propaganda, the lights from the ceiling were wire hung, naked bulbs, even the wood of the desk was wearing down, a garden chair was the guest seat facing it.

Said chair creaked as the guard leaned forwards.

"What's with the article?"

The manager looked thoughtful, smiled sadly.

"The Bite of 87', c'mon Phillip." He chuckled sarcastically in tease. "It's the closest inkling we have to our friends' outside and their real nature."

"There ain't nothing NATURAL, here, man..." Phillip snapped, interrupting himself mid sip of the coffee.

"Allow me to ask, about last night," His boss asked, unphased by the prior speech. "Which ones gave you trouble?"

"Too the point, eh gramps?"

The manager snorted in response.

"Well let's see, I had the bird, the rabbit and-" He stopped mid-sentence, debating now, heavily, of the importance of what information he gave out.

Figuring on the odds that the manager was trying to help, as, with what he'd explained earlier, now questioned Phillip's desire to quit and leave others to pay for his fear, the elder couldn't be setting him up... This was advice, and he needed to know the truth.

At least... That's what Phillip processed.

He could always crack some heads in case of a betrayal.

"-Uh... T-the F-Fox, the Fox showed up too."

"Really?" For the strangest of reasons, the elder seemed... Intrigued, no, more like FASCINATED with that last statement, the other two didn't get anywhere near a reaction.

"So... What does that mean?"

"A very peculiar development, Mr. Linn. Bonnie and Chica are the most active, their harassing of you last night is not surprising, however... The old girl hasn't been active in... Well, around a decade."

Phillip raised a brow, and leaned in closer to the article still laying across the desk, indeed, the picture in the center of the frame, black and white, dulled but discernible, was of a less rough-looking Foxy being locked up in that booth, a medical vehicle parked outside the building.

He gulped, and stared at his boss.

"You knew it was a... SHE?"

"Oh yes-"

"And SHE was responsible for the 87' thing?"

The manager sighed, and was quiet for a short while, the cushioned, retro-styled chair behind the desk squeaked as he sat in it sluggishly, and with haste.

Folding his hands, interlocking fingers, he nodded to the outside of the office.

"Aye. Aye she did it. There's no use hiding it, ole' Foxy practically caved in that man's forehead, put him in a vegetative state..."

The young man suddenly found the headache from yesterday's screaming fit returning, but this time, for stress, confusion. He rubbed his right palm over his face, and realized he had probably been... SOCIALIZING, with a ploy.

Because he believed one of the animatronics had some form of good... It-or, rather, SHE, had tricked him into false trust.

"Crap..." He mumbled. "-I don't understand... She seemed so... Uh, I dunno-"

"Not like the others? Shy? A bit TOO human?"

Phillip shut his jaw and shook his head in an affirmative. The senior leaned forwards a bit, rapping a knuckle to the newspaper.

"That's my point. It's always been my point, not to just you NOW, but she didn't do it out of free will. It seemed she didn't know how else too... DRAG that man away from... Whatever had him."

"Drag?"

"Of course the papers and the journalists screwed up the truth, their reporters, it's in their blood. That animatronic, despite the end results, probably saved that man from a very grisly end."

The manager eyed the office window, seeing the gradual descent of shadow, the lackluster sunlight failing to flood into the rooms to a darker state still.

Crickets began to sing outside, and likewise with their tune, he raised a finger to the stage with the three-freak band in the back.

"They still haven't let her live that down." He pointed out. "-Look, Mr. Linn, I can't force you to keep this job, much less make you risk your life against your will... But you are the only capable person within the tri-state area, and, that's a fact."

Phillip leaned his head back, and growled in agitation to his already realized situation, he didn't even flinch when the manager laid an early check in his previously coffee-holding hand.

Welp, pay for being the nobleman who kept some other poor schmuck in the world from getting brutalized. Looks like America had a new martyr...

"Look, boss, you keep the fixes I made on that-that, GOD-AWFUL generator you taped up back there, and you up the checks, give me tips to control these freaks... I'll do it. I have nothing else."

"Please, Mr. Linn," The old man shook his hand gruffly when the renewed guard stood. "-Call me Matt."

-0-0-0-0-0-

When the sun vanished, the tendrils of black swept inside Freddy's like an ocean of ink, and Phillip thought he broke the buttons on the doors for how hard and fast he punched them.

When the building settled in its usual grim silence, lights flickered as always, the camera in the restrooms was the dead one tonight, and the office was eerily quiet, since that rickety fan was still in pieces in the trash bin.

Curling up tighter in a near fetal-position on the chair, he flipped through the tablet views a few times, practically scrunching his face up in despair when the trio of death began to sift around when his eyes left them.

What the hell? What was he THINKING?

Yeah, true, all he had to do was sit behind the locked doors, watch some possessed robots walk about on their own, maybe have a staring contest with one through the windows, but with God as his witness, this was just UNLIKE him.

If Matt hadn't explained things the way he did, Phil would've told the geezer to go scratch! Sod off! Get some stupid town boob to do it...

Yep, the image of him sitting in this freaking chair with a pointy dunce-hat flashed for a millisecond, before the stress and tension was relieved a bit through his 'Figures' expression to the wall ahead.

Idly, he flicked the lights on both doors, and saw nothing to the left. The right one came on, and even though he was safe, he still jumped in his seat, his heart leapt, when the waling chicken came to view in the window, mouth ajar in a creepy smile, eyes to him.

Holding his chest, Phillip cursed and buried his nose in the tablet.

"Feathered-bitch... Go back to the poultry-farm... Jesus..." He muttered.

Similarly, when Chica departed about twenty minutes later, he flipped the left light on, jumped a bit again, and scowled at the smiling killer hare.

"Silly rabbit, doors keep out pricks!" He rapped a knuckle on the metal, and yanked out a magazine from under the desk.

Very quickly, being locked in the office began to grow boring, albeit better than walking around out THERE, but nonetheless, to say the least, Phillip was using his hands to reenact a fantasy sword battle amid his recline in the chair by 2 am.

"Pew... Ch-chank... Ching!" The worst sword impressions left him, and he did a fake, low-volume death scream as his left hand twitched and fell to a crumpled heap on his lap.

"I have defeated you, vile Baron-!" As he spoke in a English accent, he checked the lights again, gave Bonnie a raspberry followed by a quick "Shit face!" before resuming his imaginary movie lines.

The play grew old too, and he tried to use his imagination, switch the scenes up, he thought of space battles, larger scale modern warfare, Shakespearian plays, mysteries, comedy... ANYTHING to keep him preoccupied.

While Phillip sung an old 1910's song he had heard on an Xbox game he used to play, his vocals went silent when he checked the tablet.

**_CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK_**

His brow twitched, and he sighed audibly when the door thudded three times.

Indeed, the good old curtain in Pirate Cove was hastily pushed aside, and the last inhabitant that now at 3 am, he hadn't heard from until now, was missing from her usual spot.

Flicking the light on outside the window, he saw the nervous stance of a shadow flinch under the sudden illumination, a tail flicked in agitation before said animatronic stuck her head in front of the window, and gave a brief toothy grin.

**_CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK_**

"Alright-Alright... Keep your shoes on..." He said, stepping from the chair, he gave a last check around his visitor, and went for the door button. Stopping briefly, he remembered WHY Foxy had been responsible for that bite, gave a quick prayer, and pressed the glyph slowly.

The door creaked open, and the rough-looking animatronic ducked inside with a quick motion, standing after the frame, centerwise the office as he shut the entry again.

"H-Hi..." He greeted, once again, awkwardly, waving a hand. "Um, how can I help you? Uh... Foxy?"

The creature's ears rose to him addressing her by name, even the eye-patch flipped to stand straight up over the still-usable eye it always laid atop.

Holding her hook in her palm, Foxy began to open her chops again, and he heard that strange sound of a broken toy car once more, the whining of a malfunctioning voicebox. Phillip couldn't decipher a word that garbled out, and Foxy looked at him, then the floor, and grumbled.

Rearing her fist back like the previous night, she actually had time too, and DID complete the action.

Phillip raised a brow and drew back his head a bit when the animatronic literally reared back her balled hand, and belted herself in the throat.

A clank of metal, her eyes bugged, a spark of light by her clavicle, and static hissed from her partly ajar maw.

She made a cleared throat noise, stretched her head and neck, and shook them for good effect.

Phillip watched this a tad worriedly.

What the heck was THAT?

"**_H-HELL-HELLO-_**Hello... H-Human." Foxy gradually overcame the machine-like drabble of her tone, and Phillip startled at how HUMAN she sounded.

Roughly, she had the vocals of say a twenty-five, thirty year old female, pretty good seeing as she was technically older than most women lived, she appeared giddy at having spoken to him, and he noted so.

"S-So you CAN talk." He stuttered

"Y-yes... I can... I can talk." She struggled.

With the ever-present fact that as of right now, he probably resembled the most INSANE person on Earth by now, Phillip found his talking to the animatronic a tad bit high on the weirdness meter.

For the entire time of his dayjobs here, he'd never SEEN Foxy this... Directly, he had heard of an existence in the Cove booth, some kind of off-limits equipment or information, whatever... Until now, though, he hadn't known that WHATEVER was an animatronic.

Phillip couldn't help trying to keep his distance, in a polite shuffle of small, unreadable movements, he gathered distance towards his chair.

"U-um... How long, have you been... Uh, BACK there?"

"In the Cove?"

He found her stabled speech frightening on his end, as, now the position of stuttering had switched hands.

"Yep?" He tried.

Foxy's grin faded like a departing cloud of steam, an ear drooped slightly, she made a coughing sound, which, even for a non-human he could tell was faked.

"Didn't you know?" He almost hadn't heard the meep of speech, and he immediately felt stupid for quizzing what he already knew.

"1987?" Phillip listed.

A quick, dismissive nod from the animatronic, and the conversation of that said point had concluded, he needed no vocal command. Foxy's tail swished behind her, her forearms crossed over the seal of medical tape on her torso, her eyes drank the office briefly before gluing back to him.

He still wondered what made her friendly from the others.

"I guess y-you and your buddies have been... ACTIVE, for awhile, then?"

The bolts on her jaw-hinges whined from the force of being clenched, the hook she always hid behind her back flashed briefly to vision to flip the little eye-patch, still sprung, back down.

"I don't have 'Buddies', human..." He supposed his questions would begin to agitate her sooner or later, he tested the buttons satisfyingly well in results to her annoyed tone.

"I take it the trio-of-death exiled you? In some way?"

A tiny hint of laughter from the fox's smile, but that was wiped away as she narrowed her one visible eye to him, her ears lay back.

"I take it, YOU'RE RIGHT." She grumbled. "-Know why?"

That countered query gave a smug grin on her end, and Phillip found the newly conversational atmosphere enough to forget his prior actions of limited distance. The chair squeaked as he sat in it, he raised a brow to her.

"I have an inkling."

"I'm a traitor because I talk to YOU, the only people I've ever related too... Are HUMANS, of all things..." Foxy had a face of resentment to her, her shoulders balled, forearms clenched tighter in her self-protective manner.

Yet, her answer gave him interest.

"You've talked to humans before?"

"Dumb, right?" She snickered with venom. "Matthew held good discussions of my innocence... That man with the wrench... He moved away. He used to talk to me about my prior years..."

"The mechanic dude in Chicago?" He blurted.

"Mechanic... DUDE?" She obviously had no idea what that word meant, and her head cocked with wide, quizzing eyes, arms drooping to her hips.

Alright, now that oblivious reaction was pretty funny, and he snickered against his will to the sight of it, leaving a bewildered Foxy to glare awkwardly. Her tail flicked, and Phillip composed himself.

"I heard he's in another state."

"Figures..."

"Well, if your so upset over the two of them blowing you off why did you come to me?"

Foxy frowned at him, and laid a knuckle to her waist.

"Are YOU going to leave as well?" She asked without a hint of punishment or insult, she incited an honest tone, like a factual lecture from a college professor, and that too was just bothersome coming from the living robotic suit.

"No, I'm here for-"

"It gives us both something to do RIGHT?"

"Uhhhh... I guess-"

"And it keeps my 'Buddies' from even peeping through the glass-" She stepped to a window, and tapped it with her hook, stowing it behind promptly as usual. "-RIIIIGGGHHHTT?"

Phillip pouted, in no further mood to be interjected.

"Then I don't see a problem." She shrugged.

The weight of the whole thing came down on him then, like a big, freshly manufactured penny added the benefit of a good polishing, flicked off the Empire-State Building by a set of fingers, and then smacking him upside the head deftly.

Yet after such an elaborate little explanation, the same tiny little fact continued to smug inanely.

He just came back to the Chuck-E-Cheese-rip, axe-murdering foster home for quite-real monstrosities for the SOLE purpose of saving some other dumb ass from its grasp, and now, he was having a CIVIL DEBATE, with a member of said monstrosities.

God damn it, someone just HAD to have slipped meth or something in his breakfast.

This was just... Yikes.

"O-Okay..." His head spun, and with a stumbling few steps, he sat in the chair once more to steady his quaking world. "-I-I guess just... Do... SOMETHING, and I'll... I'll be the innocent guard and look PRETTY."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Do humans still use au... aut-autom... Ugh..."

"CARS?"

"Maybe?"

"Yeah I drive one to get here."

"What does it look like?"

"I dunno, it's a Ford... It's blue."

"..."

"What?"

Foxy had the left portion of her chops angled upwards in an expression that just jabbed fingers of 'Your cheap' towards him, she raised a brow and huffed.

It was already 4 am, and the animatronic hadn't ceased her volleys of quizzes, questions and queries of his OWN personal opinions on said things. Phillip hadn't explained what a College Campus was to ANYONE before in such detail...

Nor a truck. Or a bus.

Or a plane.

Or an elk.

Or Black-Tie Mouse Cake...

To say the conversation jumbled about was an understatement.

Finally, he continued to notice Foxy's unimpressed glaring.

"WHAT?" He asked louder. Again, she made that shuffling little giggle she had apparently trademarked to him within the two nights of seeing her, and it was clear she found him evidently amusing.

"So now I'm funny?" Phillip grunted.

She nodded her head with a paw covering her snout, eyes closed from the comedic wracks of her shoulders.

"Funny as in 'Hoo hah!' or funny as in 'OMG Lolzers?'" She didn't know what either of those meant, but the funky way he accented both of these alien words was enough for her to snort more laughing, she slowly doubled over, and her hook was struggling to stay hidden.

"Oh that's golden!" Phillip snickered. "Just call me Dr. Phil! Only I don't solve mental problems, I cause them."

Foxy made a choking hack, and the office became the one source of sound in the whole building as the animatronic's balling laughter echoed faintly from behind the closed doors and windows, she banged her fist into the desk she stood near, and went to leaning an elbow.

Phillip, although initially startled by the reaction to his poor puns, found a grin creeping across his face whilst she cracked herself up, and strangely, he took pride in the way he had made her react.

She struggled to find a word to say, chuckled a bit more, and held a paw up to him.

"I-I was-" A cackle. "-I was originally staring a-at you, because your descriptions were so..." Foxy took a deep, heavenly breath to calm herself, a wide smile still on her as she resumed. "-So blunt, vague and bland. I haven't seen outside in..."

Phillip tilted his head when her jubilancy simmered out of her like a drainpipe, that nice little smile on her just creased, ever-so slowly out of sight, obscured by a thin line, her eyes sort of glistened with sudden guilt.

Foxy returned to her timid self the second the atmosphere of reality was given a split-moment opportunity to reenter.

She once again self-consciously, and most likely without really noticing, hid her hook behind her hip again, her chin lowered, nearly pressing to her collar. Phillip became grim at the mere sight.

"-In around... Twenty years."

Shyly, she shifted on her feet, and even though the security guard had much to adjust too, he figured that the old coot up in the office, Matt, was a tad right about this animatronic. He figured if there was anyone who was going to help him contain the freaky trio locked in here, it was her.

It was the ex-freaky trio member that was his key.

"W-Well, I'll be more... In-depth, from now on. Alright?"

Foxy was silent a moment more, and nodded barely.

Phillip had long stopped keeping an eye on her to make sure this whole 'Friendship' or whatever, wasn't an act to impale him with that claw of hers, he refocused on the tablet, checking the other cameras, though, he noted that quackers wasn't in her usual spots... Again.

He grumbled.

"Hey uh... Fox'?"

Her ears perked up to his hail, and he gestured to the window she leaned near.

"You know how the buttons work, right?"

"Mmhmm." She made near inaudibly, still dulled from before.

"Hit the one that says, LIGHT."

Her suspicion rose to that one, her brow raised, and she stepped over to the panel, eyeing the window with a dangerously venomous stare, she seemed angry, but not in the overly stereotypical way. Her forehead didn't indent, she didn't bare fangs, no growl...

The animatronic just held this cold, blank, icy stare with wide eyes almost daring the suspected felon to enter with her inside.

She clicked the button, and Phil naturally jumped a little in his seat.

Indeed Chica stood there in all her strange, ugly, double-jawed wonder, beak parted and vision plastered to the poor guard's general direction, though, it seemed to shift lightly to the scary appearing Foxy.

Phillip's eye twitched as the animatronic let loose a thrum in her throat, a growl, finally, but one that actually sounded animalistic.

The demonic bird actually moved while this transpired, her mouth flexing in a biting motion, a dirtied palm drew across the glass in a squeak of movement. Chica gave off a gurgling noise.

"I-It's safe to assume... She's calling you out, r-right?"

Foxy said nothing, and began a trot to the door.

"W-wait! Don't do that-!"

Phillip had attempted to rise to stop her, but with so little effort, that it frightened him, Foxy's paw snatched to his chest, stopping dead mid-rise, and a flick of her fingers, he plopped back down into the chair with a blank visage.

"A-All right... I tried."

"QUIET." She snapped, jamming a knuckle into the door's opening button.

It was instantaneous, really, Chica's sluggish, sometimes nonexistent movement vanished in a flurry of yellow as the killer bird swung herself to lunge around the bend of the window's corner at her outcast kin.

The lupine animatronic took said leap head on, and Phillip watched with a yip of surprise as that dastardly looking hook she always hid, with now even MORE apparent reason, swept in a dash of red fur and shimmering, rusty metal.

Chica gave a harsh hacking sound, a portion of matted fur on her gut vanished in the hook's arc, so fast, that it was torn clean off, alongside a thin trail of sparks from impacted steel.

She recoiled, and the angry fox leaned back with her balled claw, and, much to his pleasantly comedic surprise, wailed an upper-cut on the bird like a furious ninja-gal in one of those kung-fu movies belted some douchebag villain.

Needless to say, Chica's head flapped back like a ragdoll, from his distance, even HE could see her fake eyes spin loops in her head.

Foxy only pressed as the foe stumbled back towards the hall she came, the hook sung again, and a yellow, fur covered shoulder was torn bare with its joint-like interior.

"Come back with more bite, bitch!"

Foxy's speech gave the human a face one could only describe as a small child hearing their parent scream out a profane jumble of queen-mothers precariously combined into some sentence that used said F-bomb in multiple instances.

A mouthful, but Phillip's lipline grew to the size of a penny, appearing as a '.' shape.

"I'll smack your ass harder than ole' Bonn' EVER could in your romps! You damn-!"

**_CRASH!_**

Foxy's further rant was cut off as Chica tumbled over a metal drawer set down the hall, frantically flipping about with flailing limbs to escape.

So now, derogatory terms of the feminine sex spewed forth from a perturbed member of said gender, who, you know, happened to be an animatronic living robotic suit.

Well, whatever. It was still pretty cool when the grumbling lupine stomped back inside the office, the fur atop her head frazzled, her ear-coat similarly messed, and prior structures angled in opposite directions in a lowered state.

Steam was practically venting from her flared nostrils and her ears.

Acutely, she watched without really seeing, her claw slapping the button to close the door, as Phillip slowly peaked his head from behind the chair.

"Y-You..." He stuttered. "-I-is she g-gone?"

Foxy grunted something unintelligible.

"G-good..." He grinned. Then he frowned again. "Remind me to never grind-your gears, demon-lady."

"Stupid DIKE..." She spat, possibly half hearing him.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3.

The Night Shift's My Duty, I Just have Company.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "You're telling me the west hall unit hasn't been on for an entire minute? First off, Rob, you are fired. Jenson, barricade the door and hand me my blunderbuss."_**

**_-Writ 3 of Surveillance. _**

"You make it sound like this... Um... Er, what did you call it?"

"Atomic Fireballs."

"Right, A-tom-ic, Fireballs..." She still struggled with the more original slang speech, yet with a tilted head, Foxy managed the words with a slight musing.

"So, you make it sound like they actually set your mouth on fire-"

"YES! They do!" Phillip laughed, his own words muffled with the cinnamon, spicy jawbreaker in his mouth. "These things will melt your face off!"

"Then why would you EAT it?!" Foxy asked worriedly, angling towards his lips slightly to perceive unseen damage.

Phillip angled away a bit, sniffed awkwardly, and chuckled nervously.

"N-Not literally, Fox'. They don't... HURT you or nothin'..."

"I..." She pouted, rather cutely, and crossed her arms over her chest to raise a brow at him. Shifting weight, she shook her head. "-I don't get it."

"They have a spicy sensation when you eat them... It's not REAL fire, but the flavoring... Um, INVIGORATES, there's the word, it invigorates your taste to give a tingling, hot/crackly sensation. I dunno how else to say it."

He held one of the still wrapped candies out in front of him from the chair.

"Some people like it, others find it uncomfortable. Here, see what you think!"

Foxy frowned, took hold of the little translucent sleeve of plastic, and held it up to her non-patch-covered eye. She blinked and turned the mysterious red orb about, shrugged, and used a single nail to scratch the plastic off.

Phil raised a lower lip, impressed, as she popped it into her maw, clacked it around, and sat there dumbly.

She rolled her jaw a few times.

"No taste buds?" Phillip asked tiredly.

"Nyup." Foxy admitted.

"No point then, right?"

"Nyope."

"Stop that,"

"Why?"

"It's weird."

"So are you."

"Mmmkay, and?"

"I like that."

Phillip's preparation for an act of laughs, an attempt to get smiles going stopped, and he became intrigued with the sudden flush of deeper crimson invading the animatronic's bolted jaw-hinges.

First off, he wasn't aware that the material there could even react that way, that it could... DO that.

Second, she seemed pretty fidgety to it. A disturbed, yet knowing frown on his part, for there was no dramatic, soap-opera-induced bullcrap hiding the creature probably had a bit of a first meeting crush on him. Which, once again, it's his second night in pizza-crusted hell, not only has he made friends with a living, scary-looking robot, but now, said robot was having a pre-teen girl mannerism on him.

Oh yeah, just creepy man. Just creepy.

So in the end, with no better thought of reactions, he just shrugged, grinned.

"Oh, alright, thanks!"

Foxy grew redder, and nursed the hook still hidden to her back.

"A-Are you coming back tomorrow?" She asked suddenly.

The security guard closed his eyes briefly, and decided with Matt's help, his and Foxy's thinking, he would live, the freakshow would be in check.

He shook his head to clear it, and nodded.

"Yeah, I'll uh... I'll be here."

**BEEP BEEP BEEP**

**BEEP**

**BEEP BEEP BEEP**

**BEEP**

His vision widened, and with a yank to his side, he pulled the blinking tablet to his face to view the flashing indicator above the time, now proudly beaming 6 am.

Taking a glance about, morning light slowly came in outside the office, and Foxy appeared dull, quite saddened, a bit more than he expected. She trudged towards the door, and slid her claw beneath it gingerly.

It swung into the ceiling slot above, and she waved at him.

"I-I'll see you tomorrow then... Um..."

His hand slapped to his forehead.

All of this time, they had been talking and talking and TALKING, she'd fended off quackers, and she still didn't know his damned NAME.

"Phillip! Phillip Linn."

Foxy brightened a tad.

"I'll see you tomorrow night then, Phillip," Taking a further step outside, she stopped briefly, and looked back inside as he stood from the chair to pack his things.

"P-Phillip?"

"Hmmmm?"

"Can you... Make me laugh again, when you come back?"

That was quite a blunt way of putting it, and the evident knowledge of her lack of socializing was made clear with such a query, Phil felt a tang of guilt, and he bobbed his chin with an affirmative.

"Yes... I think I can do that."

Foxy smiled, waved again, and was gone in a whoosh of copper red from her dulled fur, padded falls down the hall, and checking his tablet, Phil saw the curtain to the Cove slip shut again

The drive back home was one of unusual silence, though, he was glad no curdling scream was there to pierce his hearing and throat.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Sleep actually came... Much easier than Phillip thought it would, or SHOULD, have. The darkness still had an impending feel of fluffy death rearing its ugly, children-eating face in his direction, but it also had the sense not all of it was trying to hurt him...

Foxy surely had confused him with an absent mind of dreams that night, so when the alarm clock rang its song to his ears the next afternoon, his eyes smacked open, and his fist performed its routine of cracking the little clock on its roof to silence it.

A quick check of his house again, he growled, shoved another cereal bar in his throat, and cleaned up the dishes from the dinner he'd had upon walking in the door last night.

As he scrubbed a plate, Phillip raised a brow idly to the window in front of the sink.

What was he to do tonight?

Foxy was surely anticipating his arrival, and even though she... Wasn't... HUMAN, in fact, she was a walking, talking, living animatronic creature that'd he'd met a NIGHT ago, he felt some sort of responsibility to not let her slip into the same void the freaky trio had.

Speaking of which, he couldn't rely on her to protect that office from them forever, he figured if they had been in the building THAT long, they probably tested their target's borders before pulling more daring and skilled attacks.

They might rush him all at once, and Foxy's hook wouldn't save them from THREE of the murderous wack-jobs.

Rubbing his chin with the sponge he held, a lightbulb went off in his head.

"Oooooo... I know EXACTLY, what to do."

Finishing his task, he sprinted up the stairs again, changed from his pajamas, adorned his security hat, and yanked a key from a hidden spot beneath his bedpost.

Eyeing the metal object like a godsend, he cleared the zone to his closet, threw it open, and slapped the key into a locked box in the back.

It clicked, and he yanked it open.

"Haha..." He muttered, pushing aside a few wrappings of paper, and retracting with a spray-can of pungent sounding liquid.

Giving it a brief shake, he smiled to the red paint covering it, labeled with bold yellow letters above a growling cartoon bear being struck down with an extended, can-holding human hand.

"I'm gonna go MACE Windu on these jerks..."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The drive ended with a pull of the ignition to PARK, and Phillip gave a determined, challenging frown to the pizza place as he stepped out of his Ford.

Enwrapped in a usual blanket of inky darkness, and only broken at its front with a single foyer light still on, Freddy's looked as menacing as it always did, and the new security guard adjusted his hat, a bit too dramatically, and nodded to no one in particular.

"Let's do this, boys."

"Mr. Linn? Who are you talking too?"

"AIIIIIIEEEIEIIEEEEEEEE!"

Phillip's bravery was absconded with by the forces of fate in no less than a second of time, and the shrill, feminine shriek that flew from his mouth only allowed his manager to take a step back, and pinch his brow in frustration.

Yet, when his several foot-high bound into the air ended, and Phil's sneakers clacked back onto the pavement below, the young man still felt a gradual padding on his chest, and took a heave of breath to stop it.

Staring daggers at Matt, his boss unclenched his pinched skin, and smiled apologetically.

"Oops." He stated musingly.

"I get that, since, you know," Phillip took another breath to further calm himself. "Woo... Anyway, I get now that I'm super-guard, I take the whole raise on my paycheck to support TEN dudes, but I swear if you scare me like that AGAIN, your adding a weekly iced coffee to that check."

Matt chuckled, and held a hand, which Phillip shook briefly.

"Noted, Mr. Linn. Is there anything I can tell or do to aid your station, tonight?"

Phillip twitched a little, and decided with all the honesty he had told Matt, to keep the improvised defense he had planned, secret. As such, he shoved the can of mace jutting from his back jeans-pocket deeper under his hoody.

"N-Nope, just keep that coffee ready, just in case."

His boss laughed again, and nodded.

"Good luck, Mr. Linn. If things get... Interesting," The old man shoved a tiny post-it into his employee's hand, raised his lower lip, and gestured to the darkened street behind them.

"-Call me for assistance. I'll get here, no matter what."

With that, Matthew trotted over to an old 50's era van parked a little ways from Phillip's Ford, stepped in, and noisily started the engine with an added few bangs and chops of internal machinery. The van gave a tiny honk, and was gone down the road a minute later.

Eyeing the note, he memorized the number, sighed, and stepped inside the deathly quiet, and dark, Freddy's Death-House.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Office doors, check. Buttons, check. Pringles chip-canister, check. Coca-Cola-" A rushing sound of plastic, sloshing of liquid, and a growl on his end. "-Scratch that, PEPSI, ugh, check."

Sifting about the room more, Phillip examined the desk with sweeping hands, noting the breach on the dust-covered surface where the rusty fan used to sit.

"Filthy, antiquity-era desk, check. Light bulb," Standing straight upwards, he flicked the little wire-hung fixture with his finger, noted how it flickered, and returned to his normal stance. "-Debatably checked. Now,"

Phillip grew a devious grin, and placed the can of mace on the desk with a clunk of motion.

"Ultimate anti-freakshow and monstrosity blinding agent with a side of ass-kick, CHECK."

A proud demeanor allowed itself to take over as he observed his little office, arms folded at his chest. Phillip hummed a tune from yet another Xbox game, and sat in the swivel chair noisily, before taking out and activating the tablet at his side.

He connected to the cameras, chuckled with appreciation with his battery life being just a green bar with no limited number on it, and idly flipped through the views. Despite how after a mere few days, he was already a tad more... USED, if that was even plausible on the borderlines of insanity, to the shifting positions of the bird and hare, they still made him shiver when they popped up.

Bonnie seemed over-active throughout the next few minutes, he changed rooms every time Phil took his camera view elsewhere, and without thought really, he scratched an itch on his shoulder, keeping his eyes glued to the tablet, his thumb jabbed out and shut the left door.

As if on cue, the metal gave out a light **_THUD _**as Bonnie practically batted the door in futile frustration. He hadn't even been assaulted by the damned killer rabbit, and old purples was having a hissy-

Phillip's musings were cut short when he saw movement to the right.

"Frigging ostrich doesn't know manners very well, does she- OHMYCHRIST!"

Phillip jumped backwards in his chair with the purple sigil of untimely demise hanging his ugly, ragged ears out of the doorway, a big, triumphant smile plastered on his fat face. The young man shook violently, and chanced a look at the mace can on the desk.

Phil could almost hear his favorite Star Wars characters telling him to 'USE THE FORCE!' to get to the only thing that would save him. How could he go MACE Windu on this clown WITHOUT the MACE?

He bit his lip, and drew blood suddenly when Bonnie's paw clenched on the rim of the doorway, his fake, animatronic eyes snapped to look dead at the human.

Lightly, he put the tablet down on the chair, and made to stand.

This wasn't going to be easy... Not at all.

Especially when the freak could move that fast-

"ohmygodohmygodohmygodOHMYFRIGGINGHOLYGOD." Phillip muttered incomprehensibly as his eyes left the insane monster before him for a split second, only to return to a fully purple-fur filled vision, Bonnie's mere PRESENCE tickled the hair on his skin.

The security guard squeaked, and zipped away as Bonnie swept a paw at him in a toying motion.

The rabbit gurgled, and emitted a noise akin to lowly, rumbled jubilations of laughter. In such a mocking sound of unimaginably self-descriptive sadism, Phillip would have just been dead right there had he been an average security guard...

But, for the lord's sake, HELL NO, he wasn't gonna be bunny-chow because a situation that HE braved on HIS choice, became a tad more dangerous than it already was. A bump in the long road of many more to come, he expected, his goal was set.

Get the fragging mace, man.

His eyes darted from the can to Bonnie, who, much to the poor human's chagrin, began to clench an angry paw by his left side. Unknown, until now of course, to Phillip, Bonnie had more than just brute strength on his side...

His purple-furred fingers almost rang like chimes when a raggedy, sharp nail unsheathed from each tip, and the rabbit reared back, and swung in one swift motion.

Phillip screamed like a cheerleader whose panties fell in a bad breeze, but miraculously bent backwards enough too, indeed, frankly topple over his swivel chair like a stupid goon, and also avoid the air-whizzing claws that sliced the space he vacated.

The chair made a final clack, and Phillip rolled over the toppled seat in another clumsy, flailing motion, Bonnie of course, was right behind with a frustrated gurgle.

Phil cursed when a heavy weight pressed on his shoulder, and claws tore the hood from his sweatshirt in a stretching noise of ruined fabric, though, he paid no mind, and used it to continue moving as the murderer rabbit tossed the decoy away.

He stumbled to a stand, and just saw the can in his vision, on his knees, Phil managed to feel the aluminum in a wrapped palm, he HELD it, before more of a tightened grip on the base of his neck, the can zoomed away as his vision swirled.

Bonnie gave off a cackling drum of wet vocals, and Phillip met the wall in the back of the office with a loud, deafening, and quite painful **_WHUMP_** as dust and a poster fell alongside his toppled body.

He just sat there on the concrete and groaned.

"Who the hell knew he lifted WEIGHTS?" He muffled into the floor.

A dirty footfall in front of his face, and Phil became aware of three things, all at once.

One, Bonnie's dirty, blade-like nails were coming down to the base of his head, so, impending spinal separation was ahead, so, you know, REALLY BAD.

Second, there was another presence that had just rushed into the office beside his soon-to-be killer, so, he guessed Chica would share his remains with her deviant little demon-friend here...

Third, he still held something metal...

And as his hands clasped the object tighter for a split-second, he was relieved to find he hadn't dropped his mace after all.

Bonnie managed another grunt of laughter, and from that day on, Phil swore on his saved life that he felt those nails TAP against his flesh before he stopped their descent.

As such, the mace can whipped up in a spring of his arm, a finger pumping down on the nozzle with a click, and a virulent cone of orange-reddish mist careened from the spout and sizzled onto Bonnie's overly satanic, ugly-smacked, and ridiculously nightmare inducing growth on his head he claimed his FACE.

The rabbit gave off a raspy, sharp gurgling, and his paws smacked upwards to rub at the invasive chemical on his eyes and brow, swiping madly, more hacks and grunts from his throat.

Yet a second later, the OTHER animatronic in the room acted.

A slash of rusty metal, and Bonnie's chest drew another ragged-looking wound across its matted fur, a balled fist clocked his head hard enough for a dislodged spring to fly out of his jerked neck with a **_SPROIIING! _**of a reverberating slinky-like noise.

Phillip stood to his full height, shook his head, and took in the quite angry Foxy hauling Bonnie's leant-over form to her right shoulder, and hauling him in a single-armed toss out into the hall. The rabbit thudded into the wall there, knocked a nearby poster down in a fluttering motion, and slumped tiredly to the floor, heaving slowly.

"Asshole..." Foxy growled, receiving a final, not-so prim OR proper for that matter, raised digit of Bonnie's extended hand from his sitting daze. The poster finished its floating, peaceful descent, and rested quietly between his ears, but Foxy didn't watch long enough to see anyway.

The door slammed, and she went to smack her palms in a up-down motion for a job well done, remembered the hook, blushed, and stowed it at her side as usual.

"Hot-damn, lady..." Phillip staggered to stand to his full height. "-Like I said, don't let ME piss you off-"

"Phillip!" She hurried over, and leaned closer to examine his head, which, despite a bruise on the back, it and the rest of him seemed okay. Of course, she refrained from physical contact, and for the moment, he preferred such. "-A-Are you alright...?"

"Yep... I'm good." He muttered, giving a thumbs up while rubbing his head with his right hand.

"How did you DISTRACT him like that? Bonnie's a schmuck, but he's fast..."

Phillip giggled and held aloft the can of mace, which, she read, reread, and shrugged.

"What is it? Acid or something?"

"Humans use this to ward off BEARS, Fox'."

She blinked, raised a brow, thought and thought again, smiled, and nodded her head in an impressed fashion.

"I like it. Good move..."

"I needed a good move for the likes of them..." He said, leaning down to retrieve his fallen swivel chair, which, surprisingly had remained unbroken through now TWO topples of his panicked survival efforts, stood it upright, and went to get the fallen tablet too.

Phil's hand touched the top, and he noted how fur also got on his palm, which, when looking up, he saw Foxy's surprised, albeit flushed expression to his contact of her attempted movements to help him.

Quickly, she slipped her paw from under his hand, and coughed into it awkwardly, he blinked, and snatched up the tablet.

"So, uh... Hi!" He greeted belatedly. "I'm back!"

Foxy smiled and laughed quietly beneath her paw.

"That's good..." She said, shifting on her feet, and casting a quick glance out the right-hand window of the office quickly. "So... How... Are, you?" She tried with an innocent smile.

"I'm just peachy! Got a first-degree concussion, soiled underwear and twenty broken bones! I can run a marathon with NOOO problem."

Of course, she laughed, and the office became another only source of said material within miles of even outside the building, and Phillip just grinned, and spiraled the chair to face his new animatronic friend.

"I said I'd make you laugh, right?" He chuckled.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4.

Masters of the Cheesy Alliance.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "Go down the west hall to repair Camera 7's lens, there's a chip in it. Also, take this, yes, it's a bazooka, you never know what lurks in the blind spots, boy."_**

**_-Writ 4 of Surveillance. _**

There was a light click with every fall of his finger, a properly trimmed nail impacting the surface lightly, relying on heat from his skin to activate the button.

Repeatedly drumming the rune, he drained the remnants of his soda with a hurried gulp, then returned all of his attention to the medieval-styled glyph he had been beating to a pulp with his pointy. His hands began to sweat from how long they were being used.

Someone tried to say something, but of course, he didn't hear them, and continued his physical badgering of the cellular device.

Quite did the little Iphone jerk around in his hold like a convulsing insect, pixel-like sounds of swinging blades and poorly developed monsters repeating in their oldy loops of the same file. The trolls sounded the same whenever they were hit, or they hit an enemy, so maybe when they attacked stuff it hurt too-

A blare of static.

"_YOU HAVE DIED. THE KINGDOM HAS FALLEN._"

Or this game really just sucked like the reviews said.

"Holy balls, are you frigging me?!" Phillip grunted. "It was a level 6 TROLL, I'm like, a level 70 GLADIATOR you shitmonkey!"

Reclining in the chair with a squeak of movement, he bit his knuckle and shook his head, the phone bleeped a last mockery as it powered down, which, only bugged him more to the said fact of the scene here.

Locked in hell, and the worst he could get angry over was Pixel-Dragons... DELUX.

"Frag that." He muttered, stowing the phone in his pocket.

An annoyed huff gave off all he needed for the symbol of Foxy's agitation to hit home. Phillip scared himself with a dismissive look to where she leaned on the doorframe by the side of the office, glancing between him and the window at intervals.

Of course, her ears perked when he turned towards her.

"So what do you think?" She asked as if some query had already been made, which, one WAS probably made, and it was lost n the vortex of his mind that Pixel-Dragons tended to make...

"About?" He sounded more ludicrously stupid than ANYONE could give him credit.

"Do you honestly need a hearing aid?" Foxy grumbled, crossing her arms and staring ahead with a jagged expression.

"Sorry... I didn't hear you."

"Not many people do."

For what little of a string that pulled, it was enough to make him fidget for a bit, and sigh, the chair protested noisily as he stood from it, and took careful steps towards his companion.

Phillip shifted awkwardly, standing before the annoyed animatronic, she raised a brow at him nonetheless, still hiding her hook under her opposite forearm.

"Well I didn't mean to do so," He tried. "Like I said, I'm sorry. Could you please repeat what you asked? I'll answer."

His honesty was enough to break many stalwart, negative attitudes, long from his years as a child, his mother had preached that to him. Though, how right she was BACK THEN, he wasn't completely sure, but certainly, Phil had a way of connecting with folks.

He liked making bad things good, fixing and solving dilemmas, bringing some form of positivity to a rainy day... As many could guess, a youngling with that kind of attitude has a big chance to build on that with age, and luckily, Phil did exactly that.

Foxy shifted on her feet and exhaled slowly.

"I asked what you thought of... THAT." Her hand gestured to one of the many propaganda posters that the old geezer who owned the joint had hung about the office, they were all 1940's-ish, in age. Many were advertisements to join the army or marines, or stockpile resources and ration fuel...

His brow raised with interest, it was a blunt question, quite generalized, so he decided to investigate further.

"Of the posters?"

Foxy grumbled.

"Of World War 2, you jerkweed..."

Phillip laughed at the old-timey jab, collected himself, and responded.

"War is evil, it causes bad things, and in the long run, fixes nothing. It's my personal view and I stick to it."

The animatronic processed for a minute, as she always did now whenever he said something in-depth or long. Her ears flicked a few times.

"How do you know of... World War 2 anyway?" Phillip found the question awkward and insulting to her intelligence, but there was no other way to word it, when it seemed she had never left this crappy pizza dump.

After all, when was the last time ANYONE ever saw a walking robotic creature sitting in a library studying texts on history?

Foxy grinned barely, her chops obscuring any true revelation of that grin's extent, she gave her answer in a dreamy matter.

"All of the posters hung around here... Interested me. So I used Matt's internet device... Under his desk, you know? I researched World War 2 for hours on end that night...And I lost track of time..." For the short time that he had conversed with her, he had never quite seen Foxy take on such a nostalgic sense of fondness.

After all, two nights prior, he thought this job would be a simple one of quiet boredom behind a desk that once belonged to a Roman tutor who never dusted, watching camera screens that would reveal nothing but lifeless children's characters...

All of that crashed down the toilet very quickly, in a unskilled pattern of causes.

He almost got mauled by quackers and her carrot-loving freakass friend, found out they had been trying to maul people for maybe like... THIRTY years, AND, befriended the unsocial member of the four creatures who had hidden behind a curtain longer.

Guess it was debatable who was the biggest freak here now anyway.

Thus, it made judging, most of all of HIMSELF, irrelevant, and it made the just plain-ole stupid situation easy to ignore.

So what if he came back? Who ELSE got to talk to a smart-aleck, buttocks-kicking fox robot who had a HOOK for a right hand/paw?

Snorting quietly in laughter, he reacquainted to her state, and tilted his head.

"How'd you use the old man's laptop?"

"Lap... Top?"

"Uh... The... INTERNET DEVICE, Fox'."

She stared blankly, hiding her hook before flipping her eye-patch off with her one good hand, shrugging.

"I dunno... I pressed a few keys and it worked. I listened to people talk so much, I just went on that... Um, that, wikir thing..."

"HA! YO!" Phillip balled laughter, and hid his mouth with his balled hands, the chair creaked from his heaving form.

"T-THAT WIKIR-THING?! OH MAN, THAT'S AWESOME!"

Foxy grew shades by her jaw hinges, she growled and a terrible screech of drawn metal caressed by a thin, ragged point besieged the office.

Phil's comedy was snapped away as he covered his ears from the shrill screech of steel.

Foxy just kind of watched the opposite wall of the room with a smug grin, felt her arm jerk as her hook was dislodged, and calmly removed it from the end of the hideous gash of scraped away wall she had created with its point.

She snickered, and Phillip slowly removed his hands from his head.

He looked around, and dug into his right ear with a pinky.

"Ow... That hurt."

"Eyup." She chimed in, flashing him the side of her white rows of teeth.

"So it- Ouch..." Phillip rubbed his temple again, and resumed speaking. "-So, it isn't a WIKIR-THING, Ms. sensitivity-"

"Don't fret, there's PLENTY more wall here-"

"NOT NECESSARY!" He snapped, emitting a knowing chuckle and roll of her eyes. "It's called Wikipedia, so you looked up World War 2 on there?"

"Mmhmmm..."

"What did you find?"

Foxy let her eyes trail to him, and she gestured for one of the American Army recruitment posters slapped beside the Freddy's Pizza! poster that dominated the office's front wall.

"See the tank?" She asked, and indeed, nodding to the green, angular vehicle with its turret highlighted yellow as it blasted away the unseen enemies of freedom.

He smiled with knowing, having an idea of her next statement, which he hoped, he could counter.

"Its an M4A2 Sherman, produced around 1942-"

"Nah, try an M4A3E3 Sherman, late build, produced around 1944, Fox'."

Her jaw remained slack the second he dished out the correct mark of the vehicle, and she just glared with sudden contempt, her eye-patch fell down again.

Phillip shrugged.

"What? Just because I'm a fiction-loving dude doesn't mean history isn't my game."

"B-But- I-" She huffed, and jabbed her hook of all things, at the next poster.

"Alright smarty, that's a P-51D Mustang, manufactured by North American in 1944, shooting down a 109g-"

"Hold the phone, Foxy, nope, and nope. It's a P-51H, 1945, and, girl, that ain't a Gustav 109, that's a K!"

"That poster at the left has a Army Soldier holding a M1 Rifle-!"

"Mmmmmm, negatory, that's a BAR."

"DAMN IT!"

He could sense Foxy wasn't... Angry, the way she barked that one, it had a sense of met challenge in the half-impressed tone of defeat.

She held her brows in an angle, a devilish smile plastered beneath her balled paw.

"How do you know all of this?" She meagerly asked.

"Technology is epic, so when I research made up stuff, I find out alot about REAL stuff. World War 2 is just an extra-known little thing for me, I guess." He explained it as he had many other folks who had similarly quizzed.

Sure, ask him anything about the latest space and fantasy stories in the market, he could tell you... But Phil could ramble about history for hours, so much in fact, his mere SPEECH should have been a licensed weapon.

There weren't many who could BORE others to death.

Foxy ran her paw down her snout, and watched him like some amazing religious idle that brought about new enlightened thinking...

It was the best description he could muster, besides, what was one to say to an expression like THAT?

"So maybe I can research that subject more-" Foxy beamed. "-If you could... Um, help me with it." Phil wouldn't have heard her if his undivided attention wasn't on the scene, she muttered that last bit with a flushed lowering of her head.

Once again, he did his best to ignore it, lest she take another gash to the steel she leant on.

Besides, he'd have to explain the first one to Matt anyway.

"S-Sure thing!"

Almost instantly afterwards, there was a glass-sounding impact of something.

**_CLUNK_**

Foxy looked angry, glaring hateful daggers to the window at the left side of the office, and Phillip swung around in the chair with a startled squeak.

Drawing a line through the foggy residue that seemed to coat all of the glass in the hellhole, a purple paw flung back into the darkness outside, and the evil rabbit's face flashed into vision.

Bonnie looked angry, as cheap as the description came off as. He appeared more perturbed than when he was first harassing poor Phil's doorways, and even when he ALMOST succeeded in killing the guard. Either way to put the expression, Phillip gulped and frowned contemptuously.

"This dick won't buzz off!"

Foxy stepped closer to the window and brandished her hook at the sociopath.

"Back away... NOW."

She sounded wicked scary when she was mad.

Phil just imagined a glob of utter crap smacking into the spinning blades of that previous rusty fan of the office...

For some reason, he missed that stupid thing.

Bonnie made a gurgling snarl, his fist pumped into the wall outside loudly, clearly making his predatory senses further deprived like they never had been before. Normally, when a kill was available, there was nothing to stop him from enacting a display of sadism...

Now the killer Easter Bunny hadn't released his pent up evil for a long time.

Because of the damned, traitorous outcast behind this glass.

"**_Foooooxxxxxxyyyyy..._**"

If someone could get a rattling microphone, talk into it with a throat full of gurgled water, and then add some kind of voice filter with effects from General Grievous from Star Wars, they would have this freak's true vocals.

Phillip flattened in his seat in a quake from the horrible word that ushered from Bonnie's jaws.

Foxy, of course, despite having her name slashed out from the monster, had no indication of fear or intimidation.

She stared him down until Bonnie vanished into the darkness of the halls beyond once more.

Phillip was silent the whole time, and watched cautiously as she rolled her shoulders, and nursed her hook back into its place, hidden by her forearms.

"One day, I am going to rip his gear-slot out through his mouth, and shove it up the other hole..." She growled, backing away with eyes glued ahead.

Phil took a minute to un-plaster himself from the cushion of the chair.

"He needs a shrink..."

"Even if we did that to him, he'd still put up a-"

"-Fox'?"

"...What?"

"A shrink is a mental health doctor."

"... Your lucky you learn lessons fast... Walls are REALLY fun to carve up, ya know."

"Yep, and so is Turkey on Thanksgiving!"

"Thanks... Giving? Why are you giving-"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Maybe when the blotchy shadows of the night receded, Phillip would have felt the weight of oppressive fear lift off of his shoulders, his wave to his friend, the car ride, they all should have accelerated this growing relief.

But strangely, there was no usual peace of mind going home.

Phillip Linn began to grow a pit of dread in his gut when the Ford gave a final low growl, and went silent, darkened in his driveway.

The night was still in its end throes, and the sun was just barely emerging from the horizon, so it was actually still pretty... Hard to see, outside.

The car door slammed, and he stepped onto the pavement a little wobbly-like.

"Dang..." He muttered in surprise, feeling his way past his car, he found the walkway to his front door, followed it quietly, and bumped a bit into the wooden entry as a final detail. He snarled, rubbed his nose with a set of fingers, and had just entered the key into the slot when...

He heard something.

There was a series of clinks and clunks onto the ground by his shoes, his keys flittered into the darkness and vanished there.

"N-No way... No fragging-"

That was a gurgle, the same kind of noise the killer duo made at the Pizza place.

The can of mace was in his hand faster than even HE could process, he jabbed the business end of it about his front yard, saw nothing, but continued to hear the snarling of some angry freakshow.

How had one of the animatronics followed him OUTSIDE of the hell-pit?!

Was that even possible?

Apparently it was, because here was the 'Heroic' security guard who agreed to throw himself to the wolves in an act of bravery, now pissing his pants in fear in front of his own house. Forget being a good Samaritan, what the hell was so pleasing of being murdered on your lawn so a moron wouldn't be butchered by a furred demon?

Phillip muttered a line of pray for his mother when a bush by the side of his yard flicked a tad, and a conglomerate of pipe-like bundles, dragging a balled shape, flittered across the grass, and vanished somewhere near his car.

"A-Aw crap..."

He managed another step backwards, and he felt his shoe catch atop something small and metal...

His keys!

Good God his old lady must have heard him!

He swept downwards to retrieve the keys, hearing another shuffling of metallic parts by the Ford, he slammed the things home in his door, amazed he could find the hole in such darkness, and swung it open.

Phillip practically heard angels singing as he began to sprint inside his home.

Yet, someone thought that singing was a tad overrated apparently.

The door began its closing arc under his swinging arms, there was a clang of impacting metal, and he snatched his eyes to his ankle, now firmly ensnared by a pipe-like appendage, tipped with a skinned robotic hand.

"What am I being mauled by?! AN OCTOPUS?!"

His speech was cut short when the limb dragged roughly on his foyer carpet, and the pavement outside, Phillip lost his footing and screeched girlishly, clapping to the floor and seeing his legs vanish back outside.

This was not good, his arms flailed, he clawed for the door, the wall, anything to stop this freak from MURDERING him.

His hand caught on the door, he tugged higher, allowing his other fingers to snatch hold of the lightswitchs by his front entrance. The tentacle tugged harder, and poor Phil's fingers raked the switches and wall, the door snapped in motion.

However, his digits had drawn across these switches to apparently accidental effect.

Light erupted inside his foyer, bursting the shadows of the malevolent night away in a single flash, the pipe around his angle relinquished in a tiny meep of sound, and finally, for a crescendo, the light outside the door snapped to brightness as well.

Phillip clambered away from the screeching mess of robotic limbs that reeled back to the car still parked in the driveway, he snatched up the can of mace, and jabbed it in the monster's direction.

He had it.

"HA! Haha! Take that you walking water-cooler-!"

"TURN IT OFF!"

Phillip stopped dead from his position on his porch, staring at the shivering mess of entanglement hiding under his car.

"ME NO LIKE LIGHT! GO AWAY-! Hey look! Me find a nickel..."

There was a tiny chime, and Phillip leapt to a stand when said coin flicked from under his Ford onto the grass before him.

"Come back nickel!"

Whatever this animatronic was, it sounded like a raspy, female-ish vocal coming from a torn throat, if that was even a proper description.

It appeared a moment later, a flailing mess of robotic debris, wrapping its limbs around the coin, and a white-colored head observing the piece of currency like a godsend... It was reintroduced to the light through this, and it screamed like an alien in some horror movie, and vanished under his car again.

Phillip watched this with a spinning head.

"M-Mister... Mister! Me want nickel!"

"What the hell..." He growled. "-W-what ARE you?!"

"Me is me..."

"Ugh..."

It was obvious he'd found another friendly of the freaks, at least, it seemed that way, it may, after all leap back to kill him if he turned the light out.

"Well... I... Alright, what do you want?" He stammered.

"Me heard that you new guard..."

The creature sounded apologetic.

"-Me curious."

"A-About what?"

"I dunno... Mister?"

"W-What?"

"Can you at least DIM bad light?"

Phillip raised a brow, and figured, hell, he had the mace in his hand, and there were powertools in his garage, which was a foot away, he would dismantle the little shitter if it tried something.

He reached inside his house, and lowered the switch on the outside light a smidge, and the night was allowed domain over his porch a tad more.

"Alright... Come out, slowly." He felt comedic holding that can like a gun, and there was an appreciative chattering under the car he paid mind too.

The animatronic... The THING, popped out from under the car in a tortoise-like motion, and Phillip's eye twitched in response.

Coiling pipe-like limbs snaked slowly around a ragged top-half of an animatronic internal torso, gears turned silently by the smashed internals of the supporting ribcage, hands and feet, lacking the fur or synthetic skin of a suit, were disproportionately capped on some of the tendrils that made a great zenith on the underside of the thing.

A single head stood atop a last pipe protruding from the top of the ruined body, it was white-colored, had fur, astonishingly, and was decorated with discolored eye-shadow, cartoony pink dots to symbolize rosy cheeks.

In an ugly sense, it looked a bit like Foxy.

Lipstick was painted by its frontal snout, and he felt a bit disturbed by its lack of a right eye.

It smiled creepily, and waved one of its many varying hands.

"Heeeelllllllooooooooo!"

Phillip felt himself shake throughout the entirety of its childish greeting in its strange, raspy voice.

He quaked a last, and shook his head quickly to clear it.

So much for a good night's sleep.

"Who-who are you?"

"Me Mangle!"

"MANGLE WHAT?!" Phillip cried, jabbing the can a bit more threateningly.

The animatronic sniffed in the direction of the can, and cocked its head while pointing to itself with one of the many feet topping its pipes.

"Me," It pointed a big toe to itself. "Mangle... Silly!" It laughed.

"So your name is..."

"MANGLE!" It cheered like a baby-show character greeted someone on their birthday.

The scariness was just mounting and piling the more Phillip left his house.

"W-Well... Uh... M-MANGLE, what do you want?"

Mangle finished its examining of the nickel it snatched back up, stowed it somewhere on itself, and looked at him sheepishly.

"Me have no clue." It gave the equivalent of a shrug.

Phillip gawked, and rose his hands above his head in a calming inhale. He released slowly, lowering his forearms as such. This was all a bit much. He smiled cheaply, and went to step back inside his home.

"Have a nice trip back." He called out.

"But me no like basement!"

That statement at least got him to stop in his doorway.

"You live in the dump's BASMENT?"

"Mmmhmmm!" Mangle shook its head in affirmative dramatically. "-Light bad, but dark worse!"

"Look, I don't know how you found my house or even got out of the basement there-"

"Me take taxi!"

"How in the hell did you take a TAXI, you weirdy?!"

"Like this! Watch!"

The Mangle slithered back to his Ford, and Phillip suddenly found himself lowering the mace can, stepping out onto the lawn, and watching with a repulsed expression as Mangle opened its maw wide, and emitted a sharp **_CLANG! _**as it bit down.

Phillip let his jaw go limp.

"See! It fun, and FREE!" It said jubilantly with its mouth full, teeth putting sizable bumps and dents in his car's chewed rear bumper.

"You hitched a ride by-by, BITING my car's BUMPER?!" He screamed.

"Wweeeeeeee!" The animatronic muffled, letting its many limbs clatter about the driveway behind it to simulate its most likely previous flailing.

Phillip groaned loudly, and impacted his hand into his forehead to sit on his grass. This was going to be a long night, and now, he had ANOTHER freak to deal with at his own house, of all places. He noted that his mom might as well have just screwed him over.

He decided to never pray to her for help with animatronic disasters ever again.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5.

What the Ford Dragged In.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "Repair manuals are for the unintelligent of this profession. A true security guard knows how to fix all security cameras in a building at a glance. No matter the make or model. Safety is at stake! Grab your wrench and work maintenance you goon!"_**

**_-Writ 7 of Surveillance. _**

"So... Uh... Do you want some... Coffee?"

"Me like tea."

"What kind of tea?"

"YOU HAVE DIFFERENT TYPES OF TEA?!"

"...Yes?"

"ME WANT ALL!"

Phillip's kitchen table bucked from the sheer amount of flailing mechanisms clattering about its top and sides, and the unruly animatronic let a pink-colored tongue dribble as it watched the human take out a few teabags from a cabinet.

Mangle had a 'o' shape to its mouth as he set the tiny boxes down, stared at the creature for a second, and gestured for them.

"W-Which one?"

"ME WANT ALL!"

"I can't give you all of the tea in one cup!"

"DO IT!"

"It'll make a mess, you prude!"

"DO IT!"

"But-!"

"DO IT!"

"NO!"

Phillip felt his throat rasp from how loud he barked as the crazed freak sprawled in his kitchen table's left chair, and Mangle had a hurt look on its face, like someone just killed its pet hamster, or something.

Its lower lip quivered, and it stared at him sullenly.

"Holy God... Finally some quiet-"

There was a sniffle, and Phil jammed his eyes in the direction of the curling animatronic.

"*_sniff_* *_sniff_* B-But I..."

"Oh lord, don't tell me your gonna cry too-"

"AAAAAHHHHhhh! WAAAAHAHHAHHHHHH!"

Phillip's hands clapped over his ears as the freak reared its tentacle-topping head back, and belted out wail after sobbing wail like a three year old child.

His eyes were bloodshot, bags sopped beneath them, and he began to gradually break into a sweat. With beads of wetness down his forehead, he stomped upstairs, the wailing never diminishing in its dulled state, and applied a pare of earmuffs to his head.

He snorted, stomped back downstairs, and quietly watched the now silent, gaping mouth of the Mangle as it screamed to the ceiling with a closed still good eye, and bowed its head to wipe at its nose for non-existent dribbling.

It resumed its noise as he snatched up all the tea boxes, and grabbed a mug, and began to pour hot water into it.

By the end of the boiling, he had memorized every nook and cranny of his kitchen wall behind the stove from keeping his vision glued to it for so long, he began to mix as many teabags as he manage in a big bundle, and let them sit in the cup.

While he waited, he raised a brow, and lifted his right muff, only to jerk at the sudden increase of noise, and reapplied it with a grumble.

A moment later, the tea was done, and he stomped over to the table, and calmly set the mug down before the still wailing Mangle, who, to his shock and awe, immediately went silent and stared at the cup.

He lifted his muffs just in time to hear a tiny "Thankyou!" before the Mangle buried its muzzle in the mug without another word, and quiet reigned in his home again.

He rubbed his temples, and glared at the clock over the stove reading 8:00 in the morning.

"Oh. My. Baby Jesus..." He muttered, suddenly feeling the weight of his eye-mounted bags. "What the hell am I gonna do with you...?"

"Mister?"

"WHAT?" He sounded like an emu the way he rasped out his snap, but Mangle wasn't bothered, and set its empty mug down on the table.

"Can me ride swing again? PLEASE?"

"Whatever..." He was already halfway up the stairs to his bedroom when he mumbled the response, not even awake enough to amaze at his guest having downed an entire mug of scorching tea in seconds.

A moment later, and Mangle cheered, tangled its limbs about the lamp hanging over his kitchen table, and swung back and forth with a tiny 'Wee!' each movement.

Maybe a week earlier, Phillip would've feinted at the idea of letting one of the animatronics stay in the same building he SLEPT in, especially his fragging house... But extreme fatigue from lack of sleep, sickness from the amount of high-pitched, cheery babbling he'd heard in less than a few hours, didn't allow him to argue.

Phillip toppled into his bed and was out like a light.

Yet the persistent sound of a creaking chandelier continued on through the morning, and only when Phil began to snore, did a conglomerate shadow peak in his door, snif the air, and vanish back into his kitchen without a indication.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The ages that had passed before now were uncountable, miserable, saddening AND maddening, but most of all... Lonely.

When was the last time she was ever able to laugh? Much less because of some human guy who just happened to add more chaos to her life by simply... BREATHING?

There was no straying from the fact of the matter, and that was that Foxy felt a kind of attraction to the fleshbag only a anti-socialized exile could form to a open-armed person. She knew her mind wasn't letting the security guard slip from its tendrils because she was moving too fast for even herself.

Rushing onwards, the animatronic felt such care for the first human to talk to and befriend her in a matter of days, that if he ever... Persisted, on matters of unspoken activities only bonded ones performed...

Let's put it lightly and say she wouldn't put up much resistance.

Animatronic or not, while most would find the notion of a 'Correct' design repulsive, the robots in this stupid, run-down pizza hell weren't normal, they weren't just ROBOTS. There was no factory or workshop to track their creation too, no designer, no engineer, no blueprints... They were always, just THERE.

Foxy had no recollection of her beginning life, much like a toddler formed memories after already knowing who their parents were and where their house was.

Not being a normal robot meant she was kind like a NORMAL creature, in a strange, unkempt sense.

She had a body too.

Unfortunately, it was her very BODY in a way, that stirred her head into a cloud of confusion.

She really didn't know how long she stared into the rusty, unpolished metal curve that jutted from that, god damned stump on her right wrist, but however long it lasted, all Foxy did was turn and examine the hook she always felt the most shame over.

Behind the curtains of the Cove, she wallowed in the same shadows that had obscured her for nearly twenty years, there weren't many nights where she left the stupid booth, her prison and fortress, and obviously it switched roles by the day cycle.

At night it was her defense zenith, the others... Even Freddy with his annoying desire to control any and all, would not confront her on HER turf.

Despite her miniature gang-like war with the others, they knew not to enter the forbidden chambers that surrounded the Cove. Foxy had dealt damage to all of them in those first engagements here than any of them could ever HOPE to replicate in turn to herself.

She'd torn off Chica's arms before, left a crater burrowing into Bonnie's gut, exposed the true robotic skull beneath Freddy's features...

An despite all of that, they never left her alone if she went beyond her corner of the kingdom.

Frankly, she was lucky that the security guard, her new friend, was stirring the others up enough that all she had do was enact a quick sprint to safety amid their caution. At least it was something to not use her... Asset.

The hook was a reminder of all the foolish things that happened in this pit.

Once, before her current grunge, Foxy was a well kept denizen of the restaurant, she resembled a perfect cartoon-like fox, no exposure of the inner mechanisms that made her robotic internals, she looked clean, FELT clean to the children around her...

In that time she actually enjoyed all of her viewers, even though they treated her like an object, it was the innocence of children, the gaze of content parents... It did much to soothe her before the end began.

The other animatronics had no appreciation of these rotten people... Especially the ones that ran THEIR home.

Freddy began to harass humans in subtle ways first.

It would be simple, he'd hit a child when they turned their backs, trip passerby, acts of a inconsiderate little deviant...

Bonnie was the last to join in on those efforts, and quickly, any sense of 'Good' in him evaporated when Freddy began to hurt people. His followers acted en suit.

Foxy was disturbed by the actions of her kin, any attempt at reasoning with them in the dead of night was met with violent outbursts, physical attempts to shoo her away. Eventually she just gave up on them.

Then the children, wary of the less 'Friendly' robots made the Cove a gathering place.

She reveled in the attention, the ability to entertain and be admired by small younglings without the thinking capacity to realize she was just a DUMB piece of HARDWARE.

1987 reached Foxy in a matter of seconds, so it seemed, time flew by, and the good sections of those passing ages vanished all on that day. For throughout the year, she began to get locked in fights with her kin.

She was beaten, and her normally cheerful, carefree nature dissipated with each hit or bite.

Her hide grew in worse condition by the day, and eventually, with so much pent in anger, she began to beat back.

Damage began to riddle the animatronics nightly, the manager, a much younger Matthew, couldn't explain the happenings with any sense until he took upon himself to install the cameras. That was when the terror really began to occur.

Security guards came and went, some just shaken, others injured by some 'Freak Accident' a few even died, but naturally, those were the stories to not be heard. That position faltered with its reputation, and Freddy couldn't keep his bloodthirst contained to just nighttime anymore...

A combination of that and lack of victims during dusk made Foxy spring into action the second that freak lumbered into the Cove with her and the many people who always idled there.

A man hollered, Freddy reclined with his prey, and Foxy leapt nearly three feet in the air and did the first thing she could think of.

She used her teeth to pry the flailing man away from him.

Matthew was forced to enact in the way she dreaded most, and the Cove was shut, the doors locked during business hours, out of order signs picketed in the tens around. However it was Foxy who chose to utilize that potential for isolation to its full capacity.

She was ashamed, confused, angry and hateful, 1987 was the year the incoming train wreck impacted her life and shattered it to an even lower status.

And now this stupid, fleshy, dorky history-fanatic security guard had to come and muck up her feelings more, but in the way that was potentially more complex than if he had been a foe.

Her hook lowered below her hip, and Foxy felt the curtains shiver amid the deafening **_CLANK! _**that rebounded throughout the Cove when the back of her head smacked backwards to a support beam. Foxy had no intention of leaving that spot for the rest of the day, maybe not even to see the man that caused the problem firstly...

"You..."

Her teeth emitted a shriek of ground steel, and her jaw rolled.

The voice was deep, raspy, gurgling in a ruined throat.

So he wanted to talk? After twenty years, he came into HER Cove without intention for a fight, but for a therapy session?

"What do you think YOU'RE doing?" She made no attempt to stay hidden, and await for a pounce, there was obviously, like previously stated, no fight about to happen, thus, there was no need to waste time.

Foxy swept the curtain away with a dismissive swing of her left forearm, and exposed herself in the afternoon light that trickled through the few windows in the joint to a badly beaten, dirty, rough appearing rabbit.

Bonnie smiled all of his dagger-like serrated teeth inanely, simplistically in gesture, as if their fist fight the other night had never happened.

"You really are a psycho, know that?"

"Pfft," He snickered. "Tell me something I DON'T know."

"I'll kill you next time, no jest, prick."

"Get in line." He chirped cheerily. "-Look, your antics with the meat-bag, its pissing Fredd off."

"You've gotten low enough to be his MESSENGER now, eh, ole' Bonn-Bonn?" She sniggered, crossing her arms. "Tell the Godfather he can say it too my hook,"

Foxy smiled eerily.

"-Then he can lose his mug of a face again."

"Tsk. Crude, but no, personally, I told Freddy he could stick it. I don't deliver threats, I make them. Anything from my mouth is from ME." As such, he clacked his jaws comically.

Foxy rolled her eyes, and flicked her eye-patch upwards to size her rival up.

He still bore the damage from the fights that had plagued their interaction, even ones years ago, after all, there were no mechanics here, so, she had the same predicament.

For what it was worth, Bonnie could tell exactly that as he read her examination like an open travel pamphlet.

"-Haha, Mmmhhmm. I still got em," He jabbed a clawed finger to her torso, its upper half snaked out of sight by the medical tape wrappings. "-We both do. Good scraps for good times, nah?"

"Sod off you piece of shit."

"Fine, fine," He held both of his sharpened paws up. "I'm saying the guard is prey, not a buddy, from me to you. Your prerogative."

Foxy felt her hide crawl when the door by the front of the Cove snapped shut, and she shakily exhaled, stomped over to the entrance he'd come from, and snatched her paw over a nearby rickety, wooden chair.

It clunked as she stuck its top beneath the handle to bracket further intrusion.

The curtain swept again, and the darkened ball inside the booth resumed its motionless daze.

-0-0-0-0-0-****

_chopchopchop_

The kitchen knife diced through a cooked deli ham steak like a lightsaber through butter, and Phil cast a glance to the can of mace sitting idle, unused, on the very counter next to his table.

At which sat a subject he had intended to use it on in the first place.

_chopchopchop_

"Me like your house!" Mangle stated cheerfully. "Me like you!"

Phillip felt his eye twitch, and he gave his best smile he could ever have hoped to form while looking at his guest. His lips retracted over sharp teeth, and, if life were a cartoon, he would look like the Joker from Dark Knight.

Mangle cocked its head at him, as per usual, completely oblivious to the carnage it caused naught with violence and death, but with the shrillness of its own voice. Just as fast as it had frowned, the tentacled weirdo refashioned its bashful grin.

"Your funny! I come back every day!"

_chopchop-CLACK_

The kitchen knife came down with enough force to sever the head of a wooden spoon near the ham steak he'd finished cutting halfway through the Mangle's words, and Phil brushed the broken implement into the sink without a sound.

He cricked his neck.

"That... Won't be needed, Mangle."

"But basement stinks! Me like new guard!"

"Yes, well, the new guard likes peace and quiet. So do me a favor, and be... QUIET!" Phillip jabbed the knife towards the ceiling as he barked in the general direction of the kitchen wall, and resumed making his breakfast at, what was now the afternoon.

Brunch, supposedly.

The Mangle's jaw quivered, and it curled up on top of the table tighter.

"-B-But I-"

The second the first sniffle sounded, Phillip launched himself from the counter's side, and backhanded a chair clear out of his way in front of the table, before slamming his knuckles into the wooden top, to jab his nose to the Mangle's nose.

The animatronic grew frozen, and stared into the human's eyes with sudden surprise, its mouth now an unreadable, downward curved line.

"Don't. Even. START, to think about CRYING!" Phillip snapped. "If I hear, a SINGLE, sniffle fly out of your maw, I will PERSONALLY, throw you in my washing machine, on SPIN CYCLE! WITH EXTRA FABRIC SOFTENER!" He found himself belting out the last bit.

The Mangle was emotionless for the longest time, good eye big like a platter, a puppy-dog frown over its chops, it sniffed at his face, and Phil pulled back a smidge from how close the creature made to physical contact.

In close detail, its fur wasn't anywhere near as ragged or mopped like Foxy's, which was strange, because according to it, the Mangle called the BASEMENT there its home.

Yet it strangely was clean, despite its broken appearance, it smelled of the Febreeze! spray that Matt had the janitors detonate via air-freshener nuke all over the restaurant, and Phillip felt his neck hurt when he couldn't pull back anymore.

Suddenly, he jumped a little when the Mangle flashed its entire jawline of pearly whites.

"Gazuntite!" It giggled. "-Crazy human! We best friends!"

"I don't even know what to say."

"Me don't know, not mind reader."

Phillip groaned and stomped back to the counter to resume making his food.

This whackjob was starting to prove even MORE of a train wreck than its first impression, there was just so many things OFF, beside the obvious conundrum of its mental state, the fact it had painted makeup, one eye, and a head on top of a tentacle bush...

While all that was a mouthful, he didn't even know if the Mangle had a... GENDER, so to speak.

"Mister?"

The knife had just reentered his grasp, and now slipped away from its aim to the food below, and pointed towards Phil's wrist for a split second, before reality came back.

"Mm?" He grunted.

"What's your REAL name?"

"Phil..."

"The DOCTOR?!"

Out of all the things this contraption had said, shrieked and cheered, THAT actually made him laugh, and he bent over the counter in a sudden heaving fit of deep comedy.

"A-Alright, you made me laugh, so I won't throw you in the-"

"Me can't see reflection!"

Phillip yipped when a heavy pressure loomed over his shoulders and head, pipe-limbs draped over his back and shoulders, and the Mangle used a spare right foot to scratch his hair in curiosity.

"Take off the wig!"

"I'm not wearing a wig..."

"But you said you were Doctor Phil!"

"If I WAS Dr. Phil, I'd be treating some doofus like myself who ranted about killer stuffed animals! I most certainly wouldn't be employed by some dumpy-ass pizza house either!"

The Mangle stopped tugging at his hair, looked ahead, and seemed to be in deep thought.

Phillip sighed heavily as he waited for the thing to comprehend a response, and rolled his eyes when the hand by his ear drummed its fingers idly on his temple.

"You not Doctor?"

"No."

"What about, THE Docto-?"

"No."

"What about nurse's aid-?"

"God, NO."

"What ab-?"

"NO! NO. No, no again. Never! Nada! Zip! Nyet! Negative! Negatory! How many ways should I say NO to you?! Huh?"

Phil jammed his eyes upwards to feebly stare with malice at the Mangle's lower chin, and the animatronic gave its weird equivalent of a shrug, and lowered its head to rest atop his with a sigh.

He grumbled, used his un-occupied hand to shove a foot hanging by his cheek a bit away, and once again, attempted to make some form of food for himself before he went an entire day and night without anything.

Silence reigned for no more than a minute though, and the Mangle poked his ear to get his attention.

"Phil? You forgot NIE."

The knife clattered into the sink, the unfinished ham and eggs were thrown on a plate, and Phillip ate them in two bites, all the while, the Mangle hummed a tune about ninety nine bottles of oil on the wall.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6.

Insomnia and Tea, the Keys to Happiness!

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "If you believe an intruder has evaded your observations from your office, you are most likely correct. A true security guard must view the pink-slip as death itself. Do whatever you must to avoid it, even if lethal force is required... We are at war! At war... With the threats to safety!"_**

**_-Writ 10 of Surveillance. _**

Light snaked away gradually from the growing, airborne ink that only resonated in the darkness around the shack of Freddy's Pizza, allowing for the deep dusk to invade and hold.

The black of night slithered like tendrils throughout the building, and the sounds of nature vanished from the external world like they did every hour of twelve. The sounds of the creaking, stiff joints of the others emitted from the halls occasionally, but she couldn't give less of a hoot.

Foxy stayed in her little curl inside the booth, reliving the past in an inglorious repeating of actions, deja-vu flooded her system in a disorienting fashion.

She rocked back and forth in her fetal stance, finding amusement in prodding a beetle that crawled about the wood floor below her. She grinned inanely while watching it scurry in a quickened, but overall slow travel, from the length of her hook all the way to the tip.

Foxy let her chin fall to a curved wrist's support, her elbow agitating her knee with its elongated presence.

She didn't care either way really, and grew to a steady expression of mourning when even the stupid INSECT flittered away from her in a hurry, its translucent wings snapping outwards, and carrying it through the tiny break in the curtains.

Foxy snorted and hummed idly.

She rolled her eyes when glancing to the rusty, old clock hung from the back of the Cove's wall.

It was only 11:45...

Fifteen minutes was nothing compared to her daily grinds of boredom and sorrowful isolation, yet, it seemed any amount of time bracketing her from her new friend was torturous.

"Maybe... I can... I can ask him to stay during the day too... When there are no parties..." She hated when her past habits reemerged, and just like that, maybe ten of the last twenty years were undone when she started talking to herself again.

Foxy bore teeth to that.

However, it was better to the latter of simply mulling through the night, and eventually not even making CONTACT with the human out of her own self judgment...

There was now another wound to the dusty wood below her as she brought her fist down in a loud crack of impacted splinters.

Screw this, she was going to that office no matter what any of the shitheads on the stage said.

Foxy grinned, stood up, and immediately grunted in pain from the stiffness of her hours of immobility. She clenched an eye shut, and ground her teeth, before snapping her limbs in quickened, then drawn out stretches.

Metallic pops, clinks and clattering were heard, and she gave a brief roll of her neck to finalize her newly found dexterity. A final nod to the rest of the Cove, she stood briskly to swipe the curtain away, and step into the empty room, wooden chairs and tables stacked in the side wall-corners like makeshift rubbish heaps.

She felt a pang of sadness, remembering those once FILLED pieces of furniture gridding the floor she trotted across, rid herself of it, and went to reach for the seat she'd jammed the front door to the Cove with.

It clunked as she tugged it free, and slid it back with the others to the right.

Foxy kept her hook raised as she flipped the door quietly open, and observed the empty halls of the Cove's connected foyers.

These were the guerilla grounds in which she'd done the most horrendous impacts to her kin.

And she smiled for every one of them.

Foxy daringly hummed a tune, knowing not even BONNIE would be insane enough to come and fight her here, she only stopped when she neared the main halls, stuck to the shadows when the security office came into view.

Technically, her kin wouldn't start to act up until 12:10-20'ish, but she was cautious anyway, since Bonnie found the muscle to visit her the previous afternoon. Foxy kicked her legs a little, and made to sprint for the door, when... Something caught her eye, the one not covered by the patch, at that.

Respectively, said patch flicked upwards with her raised brows, and she trotted over to the door leading into one of the many blank, dirty walls of the building's rear rooms.

The door's knob lay strewn in two pieces on the floor, it was open, in a great black arc, unmoving with the swirling darkness of the place, Foxy clenched her jaw, stepped over to the entry, and reached her paw inside for a light switch.

The heavy scent of the cleaner spray the janitors used wafted in her nostrils pungently.

She crinkled her nose, and flicked the switch when she found it.

A brief whine of unused, old light bulbs, the drone of fried ozone, the whitish illumination of the basement flooded away the shadows. Foxy needed the quickest of glances to see a portion of the stone floor at the bottom of the old, concrete staircase, darkened from wear, empty of any form of scrap.

A few pieces of endoskeletons lay strewn around the dampened section, and Foxy felt conflicted about the sight.

She leaned over her shoulder to hear the sounds of resting tires, and a brief flash of headlights snapped from the windows of the front of the store, barely discernible from the back. Just in a feint mumble, she could hear her human... Phillip, walking towards the front entrance. It sounded like there was something...

She glanced back inside the basement.

-SOMEONE, with him.

Foxy huffed shakily at the realization tonight was about to get more dicey, ON TOP of her already messed up emotions.

"Shit me..." She grumbled, punching the light switch off in a thwack of motion, the door handle skittered away from an impact to her dragging feet towards the office. "-Hope he didn't give her TEA..."

-0-0-0-0-0-

As the Ford came to an abrupt halt at the usual parking space it filled nightly, the lights receded, and the door opened, not for a quietly whistling security guard to walk towards his new dangerous job on lightly padding sneakers, but for a chorus of agony.

The second the insides of the car grew open, the horrific vocals of a poorly tuned, proportioned, and basically dying-animal-sounding'ish song blasted into the night.

Phillip stepped out of his car with a dead look, a straight line snipping across his jaw line, completely devoid of emotion, he sniffed with flared nostrils, and raised one hand to brush away a metal foot draped over his hair, and the left to secure his security cap afterwards.

A bundled mess sat atop his shoulders as the Mangle sang its tune without care nor notice of its host's misery.

"La la la la, LA LA! La la la la, la la la lalalala, LAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Another crescendo note, and Phillip didn't flinch in his lazy trot to the front door, slamming the car door behind him, locking it with his keychain.

The Mangle's tune did not cease when the front door opened, and Freddy's Pizza's deathly silent nighttime atmosphere, was abolished by the childlike beams of a happy display of obliviousness.

Phillip shut the door behind him, considered leaving the Mangle tied around Freddy's shoulders while he walked through the dining area, and stepped into the entry frame of his office without a word. He looked about, and noticed that Mangle had suddenly stopped broadcasting its message of a injured elk, and was whipping its head about to examine.

"This... The Office?"

"Yep..."

"It look clean, and tidy... Are you feeling good, Philly? Make wrong turn?"

"Yep..."

"... Why you sad?"

"Yep..."

Phillip ignored the curious look he got, and plopped down on the spiral chair, yanked out the tablet, and punched a knuckle into each of the door buttons, and began flipping through the camera feeds.

Mangle let its tongue droop a little as it leaned closer over his shoulder, and watched the grayscale footage with too much interest for its own good. Phil angled an eye at it, sighed, and proceeded to flick his fingers over the screen to slide the view about.

The colorless outlines of every room came to play, Mangle looking at them each with a different variant of a confused glare.

Finally, it meeped, loudly, when the view of the main lobby came too, and the stage with the deadly gang of death filled the screen.

Phillip himself shivered to the sight, he grunted in discomfort as the Mangle attempted to lodge itself between his back and the chair cushion it pressed too.

"-W-would you-" He pushed a bit on the rowdy animatronic harder. "-Would you STOP IT?!"

"Those are the meanies!"

"For once, I understand what you're saying..."

The Mangle growled, jabbing a pipe in the hideous chicken's direction through the tablet. "She a monster!"

Phil actually found it comedic, the Mangle, the MANGLE, calling another one of its kind a MONSTER. It was just ironic, and frankly freaky, but by this point in the whole situation, who the frag was he to judge?

"Yeah, quackers is quite the bi-otch, ain't she?"

"Philly? What's a... Bee-awch?"

"Nevermind I said anything..."

**_CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK_**

Oh, this would be interesting.

Phillip and the Mangle jabbed their views to the window by the left side of the office, Phillip rolling his eyes in musing, possible hope of being saved from his new 'Buddy' and the Mangle grew frozen, like a fearful animal.

Phillip took no notice as he stepped up to the door, waved his hand a little in the clear surface of the window, and went to thumb the open button.

Mangle's jaw made a squeak, a sizable clanging of hollow metal was heard, dulled by a synthetic covering, and its head suddenly felt a tad lighter. With wide- Scratch that- With A wide EYE, the mentally incoherent animatronic watched with horror to its human friend's actions.

Without thought, a hand-topped tentacle flung out and retrieved its fallen lower jaw, before hinging it back into an ajar position.

Like wildfire, the Mangle's pipe-limbs flailed briefly, then they clasped around the chair it still sat atop, and within seconds of distress, the discombobulated little freak had hurled itself from the seat, and through the air in a hurtling tangle.

"Hey," Phillip greeted Foxy awkwardly, as per-normal. "Right on time!"

"Hello, Phil... I assume you... Ahem, um, MET, one of the other resident's recently-"

"Foxy, you have NO IDEA-"

"I'LL SAVE YOU PHILLY!"

Foxy's expression of surprise was eviscerated in a split second, a series of movements snapping the calm mood aside like a bothersome house fly, for not only did Phillip shriek girlishly, startled, but a wad of flailing steel was now...

-Well, obscuring Foxy's face.

"MANGLE?! ARE YOU INSANE?!" Phil barked.

"Me save you from bad meanies! Go, Philly! Run! Run for hills! Watch out for-" The Mangle heaved in a desperate breath from its rapid rambling "-For MOUNTAIN LIONS!"

"_Mangle..._"

The crazed, fearful and hyperventilating animatronic raised a brow when Foxy's muffled speech rumbled from beneath its coiling limbs.

"Foxy! Hiiiiiiiii Foxxxy!" The Mangle exclaimed cheerily, using a spare hand to pat the stiffened fox's shoulder. Gradually, Foxy's arms, previously stuck outward from the following intrusive invasion of space, lowered to her hips sullenly.

"_Mangle._"

"Yes, Foxy?"

"_Get off of my face._"

In an expedient switch of hands, Mangle's features grew distressed to the fact of its position atop the fellow animatronic's head. It frowned a tad, and slowly began to slither and clamber off of Foxy's face, pipes and mechanical mishmashed parts sliding aside to reveal her dulled, unreadable expression beneath.

The most Phillip could judge from her was the evident grimace over her chops.

As if on cue, Phil shifted in his stand as the Mangle slung its limbs over his shoulders once more, and zipped from one carrier to another in a quickened flail. The human rolled his eyes whilst his newfound shadow spun clockwise, much like a settling cat, with its tentacles, and buried its chin and neck into his hair, peeking out above the scalp-line with intrigue.

He grinned dumbly at Foxy, who in turn, blew a gust from her left nostril to dispatch a tuft of white Mangle-fur from its interior, awkwardly letting the ball of fuzz settle to the floor at her feet silently.

"-Um, so... I guess you both um... Know each othe-?"

"WE BESTEST FRIENDS! Like you me, Philly!"

Despite the shriek of an interruption, the Mangle held its stupid smile the entirety of the time, and Foxy attempted to appear... POLITE, if the least, to Phillip himself.

"Yes, Mangle has been here as long as I have."

"Foxy the best! We had sleepovers, and pizza-parties, and we sang songs-"

The Mangle's list went on and on from the top of Phil's head, and yet he found that distance from ear to cranium satisfying, and long enough, to tune out the cheerful babbling from his hair.

"It's been QUITE the ride, as you can imagine." Foxy smiled shyly to the display, taking the final step inside the office for Phil to close the door. The resounding bang of impacted steel to concrete, and the security guard gave her a look, that could only be observed as sympathy with a side of praying for a lost soul.

"You've known... IT, for TWENTY YEARS?!" He hoarsely whispered, Mangle's rant still echoing above. "-How are you still, like, ALIVE?"

"Beats the hell outta me..." Foxy grumbled. "I have to deal with a constipated shithead bear who thinks he's Al Capone, AND, his asylum-denizen gangers, the rickety scary shack called Freddy's... But THAT," She gestured lightly with her hook to the top of his head.

"-There is no amount of evil to counter THAT."

"Well, it's not all that bad once you get to know it-"

"Do yourself a favor, stop calling HER, IT."

Phillip's head rolled, and he leaned in closer, foolishly letting is voice raise.

"-So it- I mean- SHE, is a SHE?"

"Big eyelashes, nails that leave gashes, voice high-pitched and funny, it's probably got a c-"

"Alright, don't even finish that, I'll puke."

Foxy shrugged idly with a teasing upraised set of teeth.

"Hey! Philly?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I has more tea?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Savagery was for the weak willed, right?

Mindless bloodlust was only to allow the fools, the hollowed weaklings that spoke of such a position and knew nothing hence forth, to succumb. He fed off of violence, just like any other of his previous position had, his kind were polar opposites, always a contrast to another source of life.

While some fed off of good and preserving happiness, GIVING to the lives of others, he survived by TAKING it.

His claws were stained to a point of no return, he knew that, and so did every other being in the entire building.

Bonnie was a sadistic, tortured soul enwrapped in the blasphemously limited prison he so affectionately dubbed, a 'Body', he was no berserker, by far, but nonetheless his appetite for the unsavory notions of evil had been deprived of him for months.

His one chance to finally experience the thrill, the excitement and satisfaction of release... His chance to KILL, and to rend the light from prey's eyes, was being thwarted...

Thwarted by his old rival in that damn Cove.

He'd be a fool to simply challenge the fox to a frontal fight, and he'd be dead before even considering the notion of stealth against her. Bonnie had changed into a dual-visage, two different egos of himself presented by two different parties.

Bonnie KNEW, that he was a calculating stalker, a predator confined to a... CHILDREN'S eatery of all things, that had the unmistakable profession of a master hunter, if he wanted a human or lesser being dead, he could, and would end them.

That was what flowed into his warped mind, and yet, that second ego, seen by all AROUND him, was the closest thing to the bleak, deeply and overall irrelevant truth of what the once innocent creature had been mutated too.

His past was a blur, his prior desires were lost in a red sea, and emotions that would make the sane of the world claw at their eyes, welled in him to a bubbling point every day and night.

But even with the horrific transformation that had long wracked his form, the falsities and lies fed to him by his leeching companions, Bonnie knew deep down, his knowledge on himself was the TRUE poison in the land of deceit.

He was a mindless pack dog, and he was at the heels of the ringleader...

A damned children's character.

A damned bear.

Over the years, damage had matted all of their hides, exposed internal skeletal workings, pipes and gears, parts had been used, reused, torn off, broken, burned, you name it, physical trauma was part of their lives.

They all looked worn and dampened from the years of infighting, but Freddy was different.

While the others beat the mass from each other, the bear rarely raised a fist in the whole thing, a collected remark here, an insult there, maybe a good scrap on bided time, but Freddy used manipulation like an assassin scoped his kills with a silenced rifle.

He always knew what to say and when to say it, and finally, when to deal enough trauma to yourself afterwards to make the perfect example of his dominance.

Evil gravitated to beings like him, so naturally, Chica had taken her stance at Freddy's side much quicker than any other animatronic could ever hope too. Foxy never took part, ended up in the Cove as of now, and Bonnie...

He wound up beside the two monsters, and then, to top it, BECAME, a monster.

Freddy wasn't a beacon to him, nor a symbol of authority, he was a chance slipping from his claws, a chance to enact his thirst for destruction without worry of repercussion.

Bonnie never said as such, and, neither did Freddy, but to put aside the shits and giggles, the knowledge was mutual and gradually dampening on any atmosphere they had the misfortune of drawing it upon mid-conversation.

"We're going to dismantle her."

Such boldness startled Bonnie from his locked-away head, and he narrowed his eyes to slits when the darkened hunch-back before him spoke to the tune of the shadow surrounding.

"That's IT?"

"No? To extreme?" The bear mused. "-Fine, bring me a barrel of octane."

"No, see, I'm not laughing, I never do, never WILL, don't drag me in your little cell unless you actually have something to say, worth listening too."

Bonnie hunched over a nearby pile of drums, spares, most likely used by some long gone human band on that olden stage, they fit appropriately with the shadowy back-area of the theater.

For all that though, Bonnie took notice to the larger animatronic now thoroughly enjoying his agitation, a brown paw adjusted the top hat that capped his cranium.

"Come now, B', when was the last time I EVER let you down?"

"Do you WANT me to spit on you?"

"I ASKED," The small pile of drums thrashed violently as the bear pounded a completely deceiving paw into the top girth, and shattered the leather of the drum's center in a murderous crack of impact.

"-When have I, ever, let you down?"

Bonnie growled in his throat, kicked his left heel to nudge away a broken instrument of prior origin idly.

Freddy let nearly three rows of serrated-looking teeth contrast the darkness with a pure wedge of dirty white.

"You see? You can't even answer me."

"And can you?" Bonnie snapped. "When was the last time YOU ever had an answer to your own questions?"

"Answers come and go, when I know what to do, I do it. There isn't a human alive, who can describe their personal decision making in words for all others to comprehend... What makes you think we, are any different?"

Of course, right after saying so, Freddy laughed like he had cracked a family-oriented joke at the Sunday table, his paws practically tugged at the bowtie he wore like a father would snap the morning paper back to attention.

"All I'm noting," Bonnie hissed. "-Is that you brought me here to tell me something we've been TRYING to do, for nearly thirty years!"

"Do I have to baby you through this as well?" Freddy asked emotionlessly. "Because you know what I'll say, how I'll say it, I've had you in this backstage for our, midnight social club, call it," The bear smirked. "For OVER thirty years."

"Thirty years of the same trash on the same platter, with different decorations."

"Thirty years of weaved planning on the same goal, that I have been FORCED to hold your mal-fucking hand through the entirety of." Freddy snapped.

Bonnie looked impassive, and watched with malice burning beneath angered pupils as his ally, if even that, stalked towards the front of the stage with lumbering strides.

Freddy pulled the curtain backwards, jabbed vision to the swerving security camera at the top left corner of the main lobby to the place. He tugged at his jaw, and slipped back behind stage before the lens could follow.

"We have the right interval, the right angle and opportunity. Starting this week, the thorns in our sides are to be removed, however PAINFUL the process may be..." Bonnie didn't flinch when the bear stabbed a dirtied, elongated claw nail, much like the rabbit's own, into the joint between his eyes.

"You had thirty years to prepare. I've let you kill when, and who you want, and I've let you get away with things that perturbed me enough to prematurely end one's life. The funny papers are history, B'. Welcome to the obituary section."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7.

Lookout World! Now I Have Two!

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "The budget of a guard is inhospitable. If your low on groceries, have five dollars, and a choice between cam lens-cleaner and food for that day, you know which too buy... "_**

**_-Writ 16 of Surveillance. _**

"So... What have you been... Up, to? Maybe?"

"Not up! DOWN! Basement blows! It really dark and scary! Me just conserve power..."

"Be careful with resting your power-packs, hon, they'll wear from sleep mode."

"Me hate being girl!"

"I hear you sister."

Phillip quirked an eye to that, sniggered uncomfortably, and went back to looking about the tablet for any signs of movement, tampering, odd sights. The rooms flipped back and forth, one after the other, and back again, and the guard found himself growing dull.

The repetitive sanction was killing him, but he was making more money than ANY job like this should have been giving, so, he dealt with it, and did his best to let Foxy take over with their new... Office resident, at least for awhile.

The tablet was stuck by his side on the chair again, he rolled his shoulders, and tossed his head about to spot something to preoccupy himself.

The Rome-era desk held nothing interesting, and certainly neither did any of the shelves or aluminum drawers in here...

Phil grumbled, yanked a bottle of Mountain Dew bulging from his torn-hoodie's pocket, and flicked the cap off sullenly. He took a large sip, and watched as Foxy said the right things, did the right things, and even gave the proper facial expressions to keep Mangle... CALM. If even fathomable.

"Me have to pee!"

The security guard's left eye bulged a bit from how high his brow arched, he had a look of dread over a horrified frown.

Holy sacksafrak, these things could PISS too?!

"Alright Mangle, take the air-shafts, you know where it is."

"Kaaaaaaaayyyy Foxxxxxyyyyy!"

The Mangle grinned inanely, and released a quick, loud 'Whee-!' only cut short by the clang of dislodged metal, and Phillip watched with shock as the ventilation cover on the ceiling of the office smacked at his feet by the chair.

There was an echoing cheer from the shafts as the Mangle sped towards the general direction of the bathroom through the roof... He guessed it was safer than wandering around with the other killers running about.

He shook his head rapidly to clear it, and gazed to Foxy, who, despite that whole conversation, now let her whole body slump forwards before him. She sighed, walked past his swivel chair towards the back of the office.

"Oh... My...-"

**_THUMP_**

"-GOD."

Foxy finished her mull with muffled speech as her face pressed into the wall back there, and slid on her brow a bit. Phil could've sworn for a brief moment, the animatronic fell asleep like that, standing, supporting her face against plaster.

It was quite a comedic sight.

"-Sorry...?" Phil shrugged. "I didn't mean too... Wake HER up..."

"She did that on her own." Foxy grumbled, leaning back, and letting her head slump backwards to its limit, and as a result, she stumbled a bit behind herself.

"But I'll tell you what she DIDN'T do on her own..."

Phil reclined a bit as Foxy angled her crooked gaze to him accusingly, taking tentative footfalls away from her recent face-perch, and emitting daggers with a cold stare.

The guard held his hands up with an honest shrug.

"SORRY! The hell was I to know she was a tea-addict?!"

"You should have seen the signs!" She snapped in exhausted agitation.

"Signs?! Again, how should I have known she was a mental-?!"

**_CLANG CLANG_**

**_THUMP_**

**_CRASH!_**

Perhaps the bathroom had never experienced such a volume of sound before, but Phil didn't have to be standing there to hear the muffled dropping of the ventilation cover from the ceiling, the tumbling of a falling body and breaking of a porcelain sink.

His shoulders hunched, head jabbed downwards, and the last few tiny clinks of glass debris clattering was a statement from some divine power.

"_Me okay!_"

Mangle's shrill outcry was dulled from the thud of a stall door.

Foxy just grinned at him like he was a moron, her paw slowly turning her eye-patch upwards to give him BOTH laughing pupils.

"-Fine... Just, look Fox', she showed up at like, seven in the MORNING, my sleep-deprived mind wasn't too clear..."

"I can respect that, but, even on note of THAT, how many cups of tea did you give her?" Foxy seemed smug, giving off a clank of moving gears as she leaned towards him a bit more. "-Hmmm? Philly?"

He shuddered at that name from Mangle, and frowned.

"t..."

"What? I can't HEAR you PHILLY..."

"TWO!" He barked.

"Oh god! I don't give a crap if she had a GUN to your head, you're batshit STUPID to give her that much!"

Phillip just ran a palm down his face as Foxy held her paw and hook to him pleadingly.

"WHY, PHIL?!"

"I DID-not KNOOWWWW!" He chimed in a sing-song tone, annoyed.

"_OoooOOOooo! Funny roley paper!_"

A series of rackety bumps as the toilet-paper holder in the stall was drained entirely. It was more than frightening that all of this could be heard in the office.

After all, the bathroom was only down the hall.

"You don't think the freaks will bug her, do you?" Phillip queried lowly.

Foxy looked dismissive, she waved her paw as if to provide ample evidence his worries were stupid, like his tea-giving moves back at his house.

"Pfft, even Chica wouldn't leap into that mess."

They paid no mind as similar disasters continued to echo from the laboratory, and the human just rolled his eyes, and stepped back to the tablet idling on the swivel seat.

The chair creaked as he sat in it, reclined, and switched through the views of the tablet, grumbling insults as he saw the other monstrosities trailing here and there, reappearing and moving to different rooms.

Even though they technically couldn't GET him, he still hated being under the same roof.

"Why do you... Watch them, Phillip?" Foxy supported her paw on the back of the chair's top, and leaned over his shoulder to view the screen.

Up at this distance, which was agonizingly short, Phil could detect a small whiff of air freshener, a seeming trademark of the dump, a scent that usually emanated off of old power tools, and the fabric-like tint of her fake fur.

Strangely, the only bad smell was the mechanical tinge previously described, and the young man felt a tad uncomfortable being this close to Foxy again, even though it was clear she was friendly.

He twitched nervously, and shrugged as response to her question.

"I dunno, makes me feel informed. I guess."

Foxy looked down at the top of his head from her stance, raised a brow.

"What's wrong? You sound odd..."

"Oh, n-no... I'm good."

"No your not."

"I said I'm good..."

"Nnyope. Lie detected."

"Holy sheepskin, I'm FINE!"

"Wrong ANNNSSSWEEERRRR... PHILLY."

"What's the RIGHT one then, Fox'?" He growled through gritted teeth.

With a yelp of sudden motion, Phil was spun around when she latched her hook in the fabric of the chair, and turned it to face her. The security guard hunched inwards of the cushions as she smiled toothily.

Metal and gold-colored teeth as sharp as nails formed a disheartening grin to him.

Subconsciously of course, Foxy hid her hook behind her hip afterwards.

"Tell me what's bugging ya..." She snickered like an appeased child, still holding the unbroken contest of staring like no tomorrow.

Phillip stared at her, and swallowed with agitation.

"Look, Foxy, I'm not... Adjusted yet, to physical contact with... A..."

He noted the more he talked, the more she deflated, he could literally see emotions that she hadn't experienced in a very long time draining from her. A faucet was left to drip, and that drip devolved into an outright weight on the handle.

If she could cry, the animatronic appeared on the verge of it.

Though, he assumed it wouldn't be ANYTHING like Mangle's little cliche of a torture tactic the prior night.

For all he knew, she might like, kick his buttocks for insulting her or something. Besides, he said to remind himself of her angry side, and the scars on the other animatronics were a proven fact to that.

But mother of lord, he was in a corner now, all because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Foxy had made it apparent so far, at least, from he had gathered about her person, that emotions were something of a lethal, controlled weapon within her mind. She took them seriously, personally, and was prone to violence when someone pushed buttons.

Phil believed she would put that aside to avoid hurting him, or, maybe, MAYBE even Mangle. He hoped he was right.

"-Fox' I'm not saying I dislike you or anything, or that I want you to leave! I'm just saying, I'm adjusting to..." He almost said THINGS, but caught himself. "-CREATURES, I've never been around before..."

That actually seemed to help, and Foxy rolled her shoulders out of their sagging at least.

"O-Oh... Okay."

"Foxy I'm sorry... I didn't mean it like that. Why would I? I can't even imagine the hardships I'm helping to relieve a bit, right?"

Her ears flicked upwards to that, and all of that draining heat suddenly warped back in when she narrowed her un-patched eye at him.

"What do you know of hardships, PHIL?"

He was expecting a possible response as such, but he still flinched a bit at her dangerous tone.

"-I... Nothing like you do." He admitted.

"Damn straight." She snapped, turning away with that same peculiar flushing on her cheek-bones to stare daggers at the wall.

Phil observed briefly, maybe a bit longer than needed just to adjust his eyes to the distance he had from her, and he forced himself to sit up in the chair, feeling his hair stand on edge from the increased proximity.

He huffed again, and held his hand out, tentatively, and hesitantly.

Foxy snorted before he made contact, and with a startled yip, she practically tumbled backwards, taking the chair, and poor Phil, with her. Naturally, the loudest crash imaginable wracked the office, and yet the damage was nonexistent.

The tablet slid beside the old crusty desk with a hiss of movement, and Phillip clenched his eyes shut, and held on for dear life to his imaginary teddy bear, some vain, childish effort to rid himself of the fall.

However, this TEDDY BEAR, wasn't so... UNREAL.

He tugged at the warm fur in his clasp, snapped his eyes open, and watched the still spinning wheel from the upside down chair that stood with its underside facing him, its seat and front flipped on top of the floor.

Phillip gulped, and continued trailing his vision to below him, where a speechless, unmoving Foxy stared back wildly, a furious tint of heat invading her facial features.

Sitting on her hips, he felt the alien contrast of hardened mechanical features, with the soft body-like outer coverings and surrounding internals.

In such a position, Foxy huffed in frustration and mortification, she shut her eyes and squeezed the fabric by his jeans with her paw, minding to carefully press down her hook on the opposite thigh. She sounded so... Defeated. There wasn't another word he found for it.

"-F-Foxy... I... Um..." He wobbly tried to rise, and only shifted on his stance.

She said nothing, because she couldn't get her mouth to work right, the animatronic just watched him with these innocent, pained eyes. It was like she was held back.

Which, to her, she was.

Truly, the young man was oblivious.

"Foooooxxxxyyyyy! Philllllly!"

A bang of impacted aluminum, and the tiled floor of the office clacked when a ragged mess flopped to the ground and turned to the two excitedly.

"Me back! What'd me miss-?"

Mangle stood motionless, silent, and slowly slithered over to the trainwreck before her.

The roughened animatronic sniffed the air, sniffed at them, and cocked her head curiously, completely unknowing of the several lines of toilet paper that trailed behind many of her pipe-limbs.

Just like that, Mangle smiled.

"NAUGHTY!" She snapped as if teasing a child, she looked up at the shocked Phillip. "Philly! Hey Philly! When you make little baby Phil-Foxy's can I be the god-mommy?!"

"OOOoooohh... My pride." Phillip jerked to a stand, and dusted himself off with a hand as he offered to help Foxy up.

The animatronic clasped his hand, stood, and snatched it away as if she touched a hot stove.

The two parties checked themselves over, glanced at each other, and stole away hurriedly several times, Phil having a bead of sweat trail his forehead, and Foxy still as red as a tomato.

Mangle frowned and watched on curiously.

"Me not get it."

**BEEP BEEP**

**BEEP**

**BEEP BEEP**

Foxy managed a brief, half-hearted smile as farewell to Phillip, and he the same, unfortunately, the night was over, and within minutes of that alarm on the tablet going off, the engine of Phil's Ford echoed outside, and he was gone.

He even forgot the Mangle.

Foxy had nearly finished her slow, slumped trek to the Cove when she yanked the door open, and took the first steps inside the morning-lit foyers.

She came a stop when she felt a tug on her ankle.

Foxy rolled her eyes, glared down at Mangle's tentacle lightly clenching her fur there, and the animatronic herself giving her trademark puppy-dog stare.

"NO." Was the first thing out of Foxy's mouth, and the scary thing was, the Mangle knew what she was refusing in the first place.

"BUT FOXXXXYYYYY! PHILLY LEFT ME! I NEEDZ A HOME!"

"Go back to the basement..." Foxy growled, stopping with a dreary, dead look when the Mangle gasped, and was suddenly dangling upside before her face with two of her hand-topped tentacles marking the ceiling in a forceful grasp.

"The basement's EVVVIIIIILLLLL!" She swayed to and fro at the end of her cry.

"Mangle-"

"Don't make me go back Fooooxxxyyyy-ACK!"

A clank of enclosed metal, and Foxy's paw snapped to a stranglehold on the Mangle's upside-down neck.

She pulled the now expressionless other closer to her head, and flicked her eye-patch up with a cast of her hook's side.

"Listen here, SISTER," She snapped. "I'M feeling pretty EVIL too right now, so if you get me angry enough, I don't care! I'll tie you in a knot too the BOILER pipe down there!"

The Mangle sniffed awkwardly, blinked.

"CAPISH?!"

When there was only silence, Foxy cast her palm away, and stalked beside the now quickly swaying, silent badger who was apparently not going to leave until she was lodged. Naturally, where the heck else was the weirdy going to go?

Another cobbling of movement, this time, on the wooden floor of the Cove, and Foxy had just swept the curtain aside when she snarled down at her foot, thoroughly hugged by a wide-eyed Mangle.

"PWEASE?" She squeaked.

"God almighty..." Foxy pinched the fur between her eyes, jabbed her hook to the assortment of chairs on the left side of the particular main room of the Cove. "-THERE, go make a-a... A CHAIR-FORT or something..."

"THAANNNNNKKKKKSSSSS FOOOOOXXXXXXXXYYYYYYY!"

Mangle slithered away, giddy, and giggled to herself as she vanished in the mess of chairs to do heaven-knows what.

A final sigh of defeat, and Foxy hid herself in the Cove stage as she had for years. Now though, her thoughts were of self-chastisement over her new human friend being revolted to touch her.

Meanwhile, she was practically ogling him every second, if that told anybody the whole tale. She was in a bad place with herself, and her existence felt quite heavy when she went into a deep rest.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Stalking through the darkness just came natural to him, it was a trait he was almost 'Born' if you will, with. The state of illumination was unheeded no matter what part of the building he was in.

Through the years of his behavior, his murderous habits, Bonnie's eyes were all but inept at being hindered by blackness, whether day or night, he could see and end you without hesitation. Even without DIFFICULTY if you were foolish, or just plain oblivious.

That was something akin to a reminisce, for in the past, he at least had SOMETHING to deal death too.

Clawing up posterboards on the walls only relieved his need to cut things for so long.

There wasn't even reason for him to growl like he did, nor for him to do it ALOUD, because in the long run of things, he did indeed never know where the others wandered about nightly.

He didn't have to worry about Freddy, after all, he WAS an 'Ally' of sorts for now.

True as well, Foxy wasn't a problem as of lately, since she was too busy frolicking around in that damn office the human had locked down. But as if on cue, the only REAL threat he had groaned in his hearing in its normal, disturbing croak.

Bonnie didn't even give acknowledgement, he was in no mood for a pointless scrap.

Bravely, perhaps stupidly, he begged the divine powers for his would-be trail to lose interest. He had just declined to even perceive her existence, so maybe she'd get a clue.

"Bonnniieeee..."

But no, this was Chica. Nothing connected to logical thought even grazed her mind. Ever.

He should have seen that coming. There would be a better chance of solitude of he BEAT the excitement out of her, instead of just brushing her off.

Her voice was like listening to a squealing bar of metal form its racket into English words, even Bonnie cringed at its presentation.

"Sod off..." He grumbled. A last attempt.

"Hmmmhmmmm..." The dark mused. "Where's the FUN?"

"Its dead, been dead, always is DEAD." He grumbled. "Back off, we traded our bruises this week."

He actually thought he heard footfalls in the OPPOSITE direction he tread, and yet, that would have been too easy. The avian didn't even give him a chance to face her, because Bonnie's world went bright with flared streams of discomfort, his head jerked raggedly, and the metals beneath his cheek indented noisily.

Bonnie snarled and reared his face away from Chica's retracting fist, angling his left shoulder downwards to reel away from the belligerent.

His assaulter cackled in satisfaction.

"Cut the garbage, fight me."

"Go to hell..." He spat a chunk of shrapnel on the floor.

Again, his vision rocked when Chica's full leg reared back, and planted her knee into the rabbit's chin, shrieking out cries of tortured aluminum, he stumbled back with a bark of anger.

She laughed. She ALWAYS laughed, even when she lost.

Bonnie just glared, his jaw crookedly hanging lower by its left hinge. He reached up, and shoved his palm to snap the bolts to proper angles. His mouth jerked, and he rolled it with narrowed eyes to her.

"FIGHT ME." She growled.

"Save it for one of our GENIOUS plans, freak-"

**_CLANK_**

His head was tossed westward, Chica effectively clocking him with a perfected hook.

Pain was immaterial to him, so without hitch, Bonnie spun around and returned the favor.

Chica's chuckle was brashly silenced when he wrapped his flexing digits over her scalp, squeezed her, and brought her head with his flung out wrist. A moment later, Bonnie slammed her face into the wall of the hallway they stood in, cracking the tile there and causing the animatronic to gurgle more laughter.

"Stupid BITCH." He growled.

"-Ack! CLASSIC BON'!"

"Shut up."

Bonnie clenched his fingers tighter, drew her back in a swipe of motion, and reapplied her head for a second time with a **_CRACK! _**as a tile dislodged from the wall.

A hellish growl, and Bonnie tore away from her, stepping back into the middle of the passage. Chica threw herself off the wall, and backpeddled into him with a stumbling hurl of her own body. They collided to the ground, two dirty-yellow fists pressing his neck into the filthy floor.

Chica had this enthralled, toothy grin plastered on her face as she practically watched herself uselessly strangle her fellow animatronic.

Bonnie hacked, and buried his foot into her groin.

Chica's new tumble forwards ended in a collapsed heap into the opposite wall.

Finally, when the thuds and bumps stopped, her rolling form heaved quietly, and she stared at him with an ugly sense of accomplishment, to which, he did not respond. If he could ACTUALLY kill her, he would. But every time she'd been dismantled, she found a way to repair herself, if barely at a moment.

He had no patience to break all of her up and destroy every piece.

Even then, insanity alone would bring her back.

Bonnie stood shakily, wiped his smudged fur by his chops, and eyed the unmoving other. There were no words, and he stumbled to support himself against a doorway when he tried to move.

Apparently, Chica saw this, and giggled as she wobbled to a similar stance, and lumbered away, injured, to the darkness she'd emerged from. There was her fix. Now, she was gone, he was free to carry on. The nightly cycle remained unbroken, he still saw.

Bonnie felt the adrenaline he hadn't met for so long flush from his system, and at the same time he felt relieved the fight was over, he felt angry the thrill was gone.

Chica had done all she needed too.

"-She... Accomplished NOTHING..." He flared his teeth to the air before him.

By the time sun came up, he hid himself in the back of the stage to form hasty repairs. Freddy of course, said nothing, did nothing, he just watched with the barest of a grin.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8.

Respect Your Elders.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_ "You brought lunch?! It's your shift! No breaks! You're fired!"_**

**_-Writ 18 of Surveillance. _**

At the eve of a brand new day, the world seemed different than its usual ambience.

Surely, this wasn't just because of his new occupation, obviously living robots can do that too you. But today, this PARTICULAR day of the week was... Just more strange.

With bedsheets tossed aside, head risen in a great yawn, Phillip Linn cricked his neck and rolled his shoulders, than cast a quick glance to the calendar on his closet door, wound up staring at it for at least ten minutes.

Brightly lit with red script, was the single name of this week mark he was the most anxious about.

"Oh crap... It's Friday."

For the normal masses, Friday meant good things, last day of work for the week, the weekEND was coming, some time to sit back and relax.

That should have meant extra good things for ole' Phil, after all, he was up until 6 in the morning every night with this job. Yet the prevalent question of the year was apparent...

What would the animatronics do while he was away?

Mostly out of habit now, he was concerned for Foxy, for the fact that with him in play, the other monstrosities were going nuts trying to get to him AROUND her... What if they upped-the-antie on Saturday? Where he couldn't help her...

And to add, he doubted the Mangle would do anything to make that better.

Brunch, albeit, was slow that afternoon, and Phil found himself glancing around his home a bit more than usual in some vain worry of his late-night guest showing up out of nowhere.

He could practically still hear the Mangle's shrill pet names she'd taken to calling him.

A blare of ringing, electronic alarms, and Phillip started from where he sat at his kitchen table, idly typing away on his laptop to finish up a new chapter of his favorite videogame tales he spun online. He had just written a sentence about his character pranking a mighty Dragon when the phone rang.

He snorted, hit the period key, and chuckled at the thought of nail polish until he hurried over to the machine on his counter, and snatched the device to his ear.

"Hello? Linn residence-"

"_Mr. Linn? How are you? It's Matt_."

Phillip coughed nervously, went to inquire this seemingly stalker-ish knowledge his boss had, and shut his mouth when he remembered the information on his resume papers.

"-H-Hey boss... What do you need?"

"_Mr. Linn I know your shift doesn't start for another few hours, but I would like to request your presence here_."

"-Legit?" Phil clenched the receiver and gazed at the ceiling, before holding the phone back up.

"What for, Matt?"

"_Because we need to discuss_-" There was the blurred breaking of glass in the backdrop, and the low apology of a burly janitor.

Phil felt an eye twitch when his boss hissed a sigh into the line.

"-_We need to discuss the damages. I'll see you in a bit, Mr. Linn_."

The phone blared to silence, and Phillip ground his teeth before slamming it back down.

Half of that beautiful paycheck was going to get sucked up as his boss showed off his gratitude... By collecting green for the mess Mangle maid last night. Honestly, he had forgotten about it.

Phil heard the echoing voice of the Mangle's singing in his head the whole time he got dressed, and then, to add insult to insult, he caught his own hand in the door to his Ford.

**_WHACK_**

"OUCH!"

Phillip barked and retracted his arm inside the vehicle, he glared daggers of bloody doom at his red fingers, and rubbed them while using his heel to pull the door shut.

With a grumble, the keys clinked, the car growled, and he pulled into reverse before lightly trotting on the gas.

"Martyr... Pfft, my grandad's wrinkled-"

His Ford bucked audibly, and the wooden clack of a dislodged stake sounded outside his vehicle.

"BAAAHHHH! Who the hell needs MAIL anyway?!"

Phil's mailbox was further dented and destroyed when he finished backing over it, and sped down his street to get on the main roads. For his boss may have been a nice/evil little old man, but there was no amount of money to alleviate stress as this.

Besides, its just a fragging piece of property right? RIGHT?! Don't worry! I'll go get my check after narrowly dodging demonic man-eaters tonight! No, I'm no demon hunter! I work at the pizza place down the street!

He almost wished that check was a pink-slip today.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Sticking out among the boring, lifeless parking lot were but three vehicles, and only three.

Most noticeably of course, was the old van, rusted and browned in its paintjob, the wheels screamed a presentation of a soon-to-be blowout. In fact, putting aside the sorry chassis, the glass was so dull, not dirty just... Dull; that the other cars nearby weren't reflected at all.

To the left a few spaces down, was a white van with a large dent in the left rear bumper from the time its driver had near rammed the curb in a rush to work. This was the second janitor's ride, a portly fellow, much like his comrade, named Steven, and Phil found the boy a tad... Well...Whacked.

Steven was a freaky-peepy.

All the more reason to be drawn to the Prius model parked next to Matt's van, painted a vibrant red with a black interior, an a logo proudly reading 'SEMPER FI' on its rear windshield, this was Zack's car, the head custodian.

Phillip never socialized with the staff much, but if there was a man he actually talked too with more than just three words an hour, it was Zack.

He was heavy, dark skinned with gray hair that seemed to sheen with silver as a statement to his wisdom, for indeed, despite being a guy with a mop, Zack could break down society and the people in it like no other.

Phillip kind of had a bad feeling when he saw his buddy's car there anyway, since Zack only showed up for maintenance days... And, of course, the WORST messes when they happened.

His Ford bucked into place, and Phil exited the vehicle with a grumble as he stared to the smudged silver on his rear bumper, his mailbox having added another scar to the chewed-up dent beside it

Mangle had a bad habit of mangling things, hence the name, it appeared.

Needless, the front door was cast aside, and the agitated guard trod into the foyer, giving the stink-eye to the band of horrific killers that laughed silently back at him.

Frankly, if Matt wasn't such a die-hard wimp, Phillip would have loaded the animatronics on a dump-truck and hauled them to the scrap yard... He'd see how well they'd get up to stop him in a steel-crusher.

He snickered at the thought, and blinked in surprise when the man of prior mention blocked his vision.

"Zack, hey!" Phil greeted, taking his buddy's hand and giving some excuse of a grip to Zack's firm clasp.

"Aye Mr. Linn, the boss call you down?"

"Yeah, I'd assume about-"

"The irradiated laboratory? I'd assume correct." Zack chortled in a joking interjection.

"-I-Irradiated?"

"Mmmhmmm. Damn straight, boy."

The janitor motioned inside the doorway to the bathroom with a waved hand, and inside, as Phil lined himself up in the hall, he saw Steven wave a forearm briefly before securing his surgical mask, and reapplying a mop to a sickly, black smudge on the floor.

The security guard never thought the smell of Febreeze! could ever be this powerful, especially HERE in the capital of the air fresheners.

"W-What happened?"

"I'd ask yourself that, Phil." Zack sniggered.

"N-NO um... Matt said it happened before opening today." Phillip attempted to mask the truth with a stutter.

Whether that actually fooled the custodian or not was unsaid, but Zack just sniffed idly, and shrugged.

"Whatever. Nah, you hear me, I've been sweeping floors for five years, ain't ever seen a mess quite like this. I've seen ugly, man, and this is a totally different paintin' of ugly."

"Why's THAT?"

"Sink was smashed, mirror broken, stall door snapped, and hell... Smelled like someone took a pot of shit, mixed it with grease and boiled it in motor-oil..."

Phillip's face twisted in horror with every comparison Zack belted out, ironically, in a joking manner.

The janitor rubbed his chin, and reapplied a glove with a snap of latex on his left hand, patted Phil on the shoulder, and delved back into the mess of Hades without another word.

His eye jerked, and with a mumble, Phillip kept an emotionless stare to the floor until he reached Matt's office door, wrapping it thrice with his knuckles.

"Yes?" Came from inside.

"It's Phillip, Matt."

The door swung open, and Matthew smiled beemingly as he gestured for the guard to step in and have a seat on the garden chair before his desk.

Still plastered with WW2 propaganda, the office smelled like its usual fragrance of artificial excuses for air cleanliness, and Phil hid his nose under his shirt in response to the overwhelming stank in this dump. From front door to rear office door, this building had the assumption of an ajar manhole wafting all over it.

"So, before anything, Mr. Linn... You saw the shitter, right?"

"Yep, and it's in shit."

"Quite, now... Look at this-"

Matt strolled to the back of the room, and yanked out a small, previously unseen portable refrigerator from behind a shelving unit, patting its top quickly, and yanking the handle to open it.

With a blast of mist, the fridge popped ajar, and as response, several ransacked food containers and bags clattered in the broken lower drawers. Further inspection revealed bottles of soda, water and juice tossed about the upper rungs, and... Apparently throughout the office.

Whipping his vision about the floor, many Coca-Cola bottles and Poland Spring were dotted about the carpeting, their contents untouched.

Then... He saw the Snapple can.

Then he saw the pile of smashed, completely drained Snapple CANS in the back corner.

Obviously, something terrible had happened.

"Oh hell..." Phillip muttered, eyeing the tossed cans like a pile of corpses, minding how tea stains on the wall back there were smeared by the marks of a lapping tongue as well.

"Mr. Linn... I did tell you to call me if something happened. What did they-" Matt cut himself off, and hurried around his desk to snap the door shut to the room entirely.

"-Did they get in a big fight or what?"

Phillip sighed.

"Look boss, throughout our entire professional relationship at this pizza shack, I've broken things down around these animatronics with elongated, and quite angry rants..."

Matthew nodded skeptically.

"-But I'm going to sum this up quicker than any explanation we've ever given each other, or most likely ever will."

Phillip turned too his manager with a dead look.

"Matt, the Mangle likes me. She likes me a lot. All I ask for is your prayers for me tonight, and forgiveness for the mess..."

"Alright but that doesn't explain-" The old man went silent, mouth half opened for his next words, finger raised.

His jaw clapped shut and his hand balled at his hip.

"-Actually Mr. Linn that explains everything." He stated.

Phillip smiled cheaply with an apologetic shrug.

"Well, since you are indeed risking your life with this... You've kept this place's secret so I intend to return the favor. I'll fix the damages up this weekend, and we'll... We'll see about methods for controlling the Mangle..."

"Why? You've dealt with her too-?"

"Oh YES. The Mangle's a..." Phillip never proved it, but he could've sworn Matthew wiped a trailing bead of drool from his mouth when his speech stopped for a second. "-A, um... UNIQUE, character."

"That's generously put... Listen, boss, about the weekend, what will the animatronics do while I'm off?"

"Ehm-" Matt shook his head to recover himself and blinked. "-Normally they don't do much. There's no people even around the building at that time."

"What about Foxy and the..." Phillip shivered. "-The MANGLE?"

"What about them?"

"The trio of death knows they hang out with me in the office, boss."

"Hang... OUT?"

Phillip raised a brow to Matt's sudden interest, the short old man practically leapt closer in astonishment.

"-That hook-wielding vulpine has been SOCIALIZING with you continuously?"

"...Yes...?"

"Good lord! That's astonishing! That's... Unlike her... And the Mangle is with her?"

"Not by her choice I'd think."

"Mr. Linn! This is our chance! Quickly, come with me and take that can of mace you've been trying to hide from me for a week, let's go!"

Phillip jumped with wide eyes, and instinctively snatched hold of the can hidden in the back of his hoody.

"-How did-?"

"No time! Come my boy!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Within the dusty walls of forgotten prospect, there was no exaggeration to the fact a time capsule was concealed, and harbored like a festering growth unattended too for decades.

The Cove was a literal tumor on the rear of the building, for when somewhat vibrant colors of fresh paint, recent additions to newer cork boards nailed to the tile, icons of pizza slices lessened in number... Freddy's became the back-alley of a slum.

The plaster that coated the walls here was matted, stained, and would make you cough uncontrollably upon brushing a palm over their surface, and disturbing the layers of dust.

Carpet, concrete and tiled floors evaporated more every hall until olden wood made the ground, and less and less light fixtures on the ceiling were actually functioning. Several lobbies, individual bathrooms and an entirely unseen eating lounge all connected to the Cove like satellites.

All of them were evenly neglected, the worst of the rooms still had footprints barely seeable under mountains of dust and debris from where feet were the only wear on the matt of filth so long ago.

Mathew hurriedly kicked up clouds of smog when he stepped through it, and Phillip found enough gunk in the air to make an excuse for coning his nose under his shirt's neckline.

Frankly he'd had no idea that Foxy actually... Called this part of the building home.

"Boss, this joint's a wreck."

"Quite, I've been forced to keep it like this under the guise of 'Renovations' since '87-"

"-Foxy wasn't exaggerating then?"

"Not at all." Mathew stopped them briefly in the mess, and waved a hand about him, seemingly unaltered by the atmospheric mess that clouded about them lingeringly.

"-Mr. Linn, you've spoken to her more than any human has at a single time, but many years ago, before and after the attack that wrought her here, I indeed have heard her sides and words. Phillip, I'm excited about this because I believe you can finally resolve this travesty!"

"Resolve? Man, you really are starting to freak me out-"

"This way, through the door, come-come!"

Phillip gagged when Matt shoved past, knocked his covering shirt away, and snapped open a rickety door behind the guard with a quick tug.

It shrieked on rusted hinges, and the wood snapped and creaked audibly when his boss held it open, waved a hand for quickened pace.

"If I had known my part-time job was going to be a Dungeons and Dragons campaign, I'd have brought a rulebook book, Matt-!"

"Phillip," Whether the old man heard his taller employee's words was never disclosed, for the short manager held a forearm out to the new room they stood in, stacked with chairs and tables like a wall of debris on all corners.

"-Welcome to Pirate Cove."

There was no dramatic movie-ish moment of a dropped jaw, and silent gaping for dramatic music, but Phil did indeed remain silent as he gazed around to Foxy's literal prison.

Wooden bottoms and floors to plaster walls, a paneled ceiling, two boarded windows at the top height of the sides, all evenly coated in garbage and wear, and every single chair and table stacked in a series of great piles.

Yet the only centerpiece was a circular stage enwrapped in a purple, white-spotted curtain, several battered, broken pieces of wooden trash were piled behind the upraising, and when they stepped closer, Phillip realized they were nautical sailship props.

"Damn..." Phillip grumbled in pity.

"-As you can tell, Mr. Linn, it's daytime, thus the animatronics won't be active, including our friend here and... Wherever the Mangle has run off to-"

"PHILLY BROUGHT FRIENDS! YAAAAAYYYYYY!"

Phillip vanished from his boss' vision in a ragdolled jerk of impact, his head angling opposite the hit in an angle that was prone to causing injury.

Despite the guard giving off a cut 'Oof-!' before falling, Matt wheezed in sudden surprise, and held a clutching hand to his chest with an exaggerated exhale.

Phil lay on the dusty floor silently, eyes wide, right one twitching, as a tentacled mess formed a wrap of junk and hugging metal about his midsection, and the white-furred, vulpine head of the Mangle zipped into his face with a beaming, toothy smile.

"Hiiiiiiiii, Philly!" She chirped.

"H-hi, Mangle..." He croaked in pain.

"It's unexpected, but I suppose Mangle isn't affected by the sun after all..."

"OOOoooooOOOOoooo... Who is you?"

Matt angled back a bit when the crazed animatronic jutted off of Phillip to latch to the ceiling above, dangle upside-down in front of the aged man's face with a curious indent of her chops.

She rocked a bit in her hang, and sniffed in his direction.

"-H-hello, Mangle... You met me many years ago, remember? My name is Mat-"

"WAIT!"

He jerked in startle when she shrilly cut him off, and lidded her one good eye whilst rubbing her chin with a spare foot.

"Lemme guess..."

"... There's no need, Mangle, I was about-"

"-You're Bill!"

"...No."

"-Fredrich?"

"No, I'm-"

"Bob!"

"Mangle, please let me-"

"Me know! ME KNOW! You're DAVID HASSLEHOFF!"

"Pfft, I wish. No, I'm Matthew, the manager."

The Mangle dropped her limbs awkwardly, cocked her head to the elder she hung in front of, stared dumbly for a good few seconds as Phil gathered himself to a stand.

"Doesn't ring any smells mister!"

"It's BELLS, Mangle-" Phillip coughed when he dusted his hoody off, and hacked in awkward surprise when the Mangle swung over akin to a deranged primate, and looped over his shoulders to falsely attempt a knuckle-sandwich with a foot-heel instead.

"Silly Philly! Me has no bells!"

"Get your foot out of my hair!"

"Mangle, are you sure you don't remember me?" Matt tried again with a raised hand to Phil's head.

"MmmMmm, nope!" Her muffled speech came from the poor guard's hair as she peaked over the black fuzz inquisitively.

"I was the one playing FUN on the radio, We are Young? You thought demons were contacting us and dumped axel grease on my head."

By now, the Mangle AND Phil were staring to the poor manager like he was insane.

And that was saying something, because the animatronic atop his head was the real nutjob here to begin with. Quite an ironic turn there.

"-My hair caught fire." Matthew added with a twitching grin.

The young man felt fingers drum on his scalp, and the freak atop his head gasped excitedly.

"-ME KNOW YOU! You scream funny!" She didn't leave her new buddy's head the whole time, and by now, her pipe-limbs were heightened in her random exacerbation of joy. "Matty-Kins! Hiiiiii!"

Phillip clenched his fingers between his brows.

"Good lord... It'll never end."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9.

Taking Risks is Healthy, Trust Me.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"A quick guide to capital punishment for intruders. Burglars get hit with a blunt, preferably a bat or golf club. Kidnappers are to be executed. Arsonists are to be executed. Vandals are to be executed. Here, I'll make it simple, all defilers of security are to be executed! Onwards, for safety!"_**

**_-Writ 20 of Surveillance. (PENDING PUBLISHER APPROVAL.) _**

"Matt I still don't understand your plan with this-"

"Don't worry, Phil... All will be made clear. Just follow me to my office again-"

"-Me want cuddles!"

Mid walk, it was quite difficult to maintain a steady stand when a crazed animatronic was digging its eared cranium into your ribs, and, you know, it just happened to be made of metal.

Phillip grunted with the Mangle's feline-like attentions, and shoved at her head in the opposite angle of which she pressed from.

"-Mangle, would you stop!"

"But Philly! I'z need ATTENTIONS!"

"You need to get a grip."

"Okey-Dokey!"

Matt couldn't tell whether he saw the situation as cute or disturbing, but nevertheless, he held his tongue with struggling jaws when the guard barked in agitation to a hand-capped pipe-limb wrapping around his thigh in a squeeze.

The Mangle giggled, giddy, and continuously oblivious to the annoyance she reaped on a epic scale.

In a prolonged struggle of flailing arms, kicking ankles, angry curses from a fed-up guard and child-like laughs from a deranged half-robotic organism, Phillip followed Matthew all the way to the office, and even shut the door behind them upon entering.

The old manager looked at the animatronic strangely, like someone did to an unseen, alien animal recently documented, he tried to keep composure whilst he sat behind his desk.

Finally, while his boss glared, waiting for the Mangle to stop at some point, Phil tugged a bit harder on the snake-like motions of his shadow, and pried her off of his flank with a forceful flinging of his wrists.

The Mangle yipped and hung, dangling, with three of her pipes caught in his clenched fist.

"Mangle. Knock. It. OFF."

"OooooooOooo... Me can do that!"

Phillip reclined in sudden horror when one of the Mangle's fists reared back, and connected with the tentacles he held, emitting a loud clang of contact, and effectively breaking them away from her whole.

He shrieked with the vigor of a little girl and dropped her, and her amputated limbs on the carpet.

Matt just clenched his brow in deliberate patience as the Mangle took great amusement to his reaction.

"Silly!" She taunted, the three pipes wriggling across the floor like worms, independent of her, and reattached to the mess of junk with clicks of confirmation. A second later, and she rolled them about briefly for a good test.

There was really no comment to even be made, especially since Phillip brushed the event off a second later, shook himself, and sat in the garden chair before the desk with narrowed eyes.

"Would you feel a bit better if I apologized?" Matthew mumbled.

"Probably not, old man... Probably not-" The security worker's speech was cut short as he yanked his hand away from the prehensile Mangle-tongue that curled about his palm from under the chair, and wiped his fingers on his pant-leg.

"Look Mr. Linn, I'm sorry if my excitement wasn't a clear as preferred. But I have decided you are the man for the real problem here, which I will explain, in FULL detail."

They both smiled at his past use of the line, and Matt pulled a small drawer from his end of the desk out, shuffled through many documents and clippings, and finally gave off a short 'Ah!' as he pushed a spare stapler away.

Phil angled his head curiously as his boss slapped a small folder on the desktop, its contents sealed with a tied miniature chainlink, of all things, and held in place with a small security lock.

"All that for a legal document? What gives?"

"Phillip, its not a document, its an evidence file. I've been collecting pieces of data, proof and theories to be disclosed since BEFORE '87..." Matthew took a key from his pocket, for within a moment, the lock clacked open, and he put both of the trinkets into the drawer whence they came.

"So you've been building a case file... For robots?"

"Me take offense, Philly!"

Phil's chair bucked a bit as the Mangle literally planted her cranium into the underside of the seat from her hidden stance down there.

The young man rolled his eyes.

"As you can see, they're not as robotic as first impressions give." Matt said musingly.

"That's an understatement, boss."

"Quite. Open the folder, Phillip, I'm trusting you with seeing this, and no other at the time."

Phillip was initially skeptical, but by this point, how crazy could the geezer be? Everything he had said so far had been... Well, right.

He chewed his own tongue a bit, and clasped the folder's gray exterior to flip the cover open, and almost gagged at the sight inside.

"-Oh Christ..." Phillip muttered, reaffirming his stare to a basic crimescene photograph, even labeled with the local precinct number of the state.

"Mr. Linn, Mangle is an odd breed here, and so is Foxy-"

"Foxxxxyyyy!"

Another jerk from under the chair, and Phillip did his best to ignore it.

Staying transfixed to the black and white picture on the desk, both men stared ominously to a middle-aged male sprawled on the floor of the office, the thin carpet of the place stained black in the colorless image.

In all honesty, it appeared as if the man's gut had been swept open by a buzz saw.

Matthew was expressionless.

"His name was George Harrolson, the first night guard here, one of the last too."

Matt flipped the photo to reveal several smaller camera shots printed on a large bristol sheet, all showing various injuries on arms, legs, shoulders, a few had wounds on their heads and backs.

"Many of these guards blacked out before they could even see what hit them. After 1987, business plummeted, not only had the papers published the Bite on every local issue, but now our employees were getting hurt by 'Break-In Attempts'. I had to lie to cover it."

"Matthew... Why wouldn't you let someone scrap the animatronics? The three freakshows on the stage I mean? This is... Insane, evil at most." Phillip sounded grim.

To a make a point with the atmosphere, Mangle's constant chattering and shuffling had even gone quiet beneath his garden chair of a seat.

"Mr. Linn, I realize you are not familiar with how these... Beings, if you will, work. Listen to me, I have thought the exact SAME thing you are. There is no beating around the bush when I say more people will die if that were to happen."

"By having the demonic whacks SCRAPPED?!" Phil barked, suddenly feeling indignant.

"Phillip I have tried three times, THREE TIMES! To have Freddy and his followers sent to a junkyard! And THREE TIMES, three scrap plants were reported to have suffered a criminal massacre! Three entire staffs of innocent workers murdered!"

Matthew pumped his fist into the top of the desk with a bang of contact.

"-Don't you think I have tried to see this logically, Phillip? Because I did what any NORMAL person would do, and I ended up getting nearly forty people butchered! Then, like flies too shit! The three of them just reappear on that-that-!"

He jabbed a finger towards the door in a half stand, pure anger and distress written in his chiseled features.

"-That god-damned stage! Grinning! MOCKING me for ending innocent lives! Then I find the records of them being sent there are gone as well! And any personal witnesses to the whole have also died in the incident!"

Phillip didn't know what to say as his boss slumped back into his chair, and stared down at the desk in a defeated fashion, brow convulsing, eyes cringed in sheer negativity.

"-I-I have... So much blood on my hands... Mr. Linn. I have been... Trying so long to end this... THAT, evil outside this office, by myself. And at the end of my rope I realize, I need help."

The guard felt chilled blood when Matt flipped his vision to his employee like a scrutinizing warlord on some medieval battlefield.

There wasn't much to say after that, and the old man just ran his palms down his face, wheezed a good breath, inhaled and exhaled, before leaning over the folder again to flip its contents. Phillip said and did nothing, seeing the prior photosheet move aside for a series of medical records; most likely the victims prior mentioned.

That went away also, and beneath was a small, plastic package, its contents blurred by smudged wrapping.

Matt glared, and looked to the guard, before swiping the plastic packaging away, and drawing forth a tiny note, which, strangely enough, was made of parchment.

"What is that?" Phil asked blandly.

"Mr. Linn... Out of all this information, this is the one thing I do not know."

The tiny scribble was unfurled, the material making dusty brushing noises, and handed to an awaiting hand of the guard.

Phillip tossed it lightly in his fingers to clear some debris, and read a small block of apparently hand-written text that, by all means, looked like it had been formed on the end of a quill.

"The 'eve of Tuesday will the shipments come forth." He read aloud, gazing to Matt curiously. "-What does that mean?"

"Look at the date." Matthew brushed it off with a casual wave of his hand.

Phil gawked at the note again, and narrowed his brows.

"1921?"

"Me and my mechanic, the one Foxy knew? In Chicago? We found that in a gear slot within Freddy's endoskeleton ribs..."

"You said they were old-?"

"-And by hell I wasn't jesting, Phillip."

As the two stared to the tiny parchment in the guard's clenched fingers, the broiled mess of metal called the Mangle, gradually stood to lean on Phil's shoulder, her head angled down to the note in her friend's hand.

She hummed idly while cleaning out the inside of a torn-in-half Snapple can held in a hand-capped pipe, with slithery licks of her outstretched, abnormally long, tongue.

"Look, Matt, I've been in this for long enough to know something is amiss... But I guess I haven't really seen the full extent of mafia-boy outside..."

"Let's keep it that way, Mr. Linn. With your help, we can gather our strength, me, you, and any animatronics willing to..." Matthew coughed as the Mangle sucked its licker back in with a loud, repulsive slurp, and waved to him with a toothy grin.

"-Ahem, willing to help." He finished.

"You want to make a team of crime fighters to remove Fredd and his pals from the picture?"

"You have a better idea, Mr. Linn?"

"There's no one we can go to for this... So... No, boss, I don't."

"Me like cupcakes." Mangle stated factually out of random.

"-Then its settled, Phillip. I think the Mangle will side with whoever Foxy sides with, but I need you to convince her, for I doubt ole' Fox' will listen to me, much less even LOOK at me."

Phillip tugged at his jaw and draped the parchment back into the gray folder on the desk.

The Mangle sniffed at him, and retrieved another torn open can from the floor to idly swirl her tongue inside as she stared at the World War 2 posters on the walls.

"Alright boss, I'll do it. I think if we combine our knowledge we can find a way to stop the trio of death... Specifically though, I'm not so sure how."

"Mr. Linn, we'll see if we can find a weakness first, then..." With a brief glance to the plastic still in the layered folder, Matt smiled cheaply. "-Then we will exploit it."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Philly, what were you and Matty-kins talking about?"

"Not now, Mangle..."

Phillip practically dismissed the animatronic with a grunt as he sat in the chair, swiveled it to the back of the office, and shut both the doors when the generator in the back hummed to activity.

Wrapped over his shoulders, she tangled mess of metal said nothing at first, rocked a bit with nervousness atop him, and then sniffed at his face a bit.

"Philly?"

"WHAT?" He snapped. "-Mangle, I get that your very lighthearted, and comical, and you have some... INTERESTING views on things, but I really, REALLY, need you to leave me alone right now."

The chair creaked as he leaned forwards, almost hunching to hide his face from the vulpine creature huddled on his back, and swiped about on the tablet in his lap. He grumbled when the normal three began their nightly routine.

**_CLUNK CLUNK_**

The Mangle shrieked and flew off of him faster than a mouse scurried off of an exposed trap, and her one good eye glowed in the darkness beneath the desk.

Phillip grumbled, stood up, and switched the light on outside to see his usual guest shift in her stance, and look blankly at the window he peered through. She gestured for the door with an angled brow, and he hurried over to slap the button.

The second the metal folded into the wall, she stepped in with a quiet, near inaudible greeting, and didn't pay mind when the door shut afterwards.

"Hey Fox'..."

"Hi."

"So what's the deal for tonight?"

Foxy looked as if she didn't hear him, and just shrugged to confirm otherwise.

"Hiiiiii Foooxxxxxxyyyyy..." Mangle meeped in a drawn out vocal beneath the desk, and slowly slithered out to wave with a spare foot.

If there was any indication to present tension, it was this quite complicated little cliche of a mess before him. Foxy had the expression of someone trapped in a sauna while wearing a jacket, and Mangle tried to gaze between the two while remaining unnoticed.

A small grunt from the fox, and she scratched an itch by the joining of her wrist and hook, subtly buried the metal curve back beneath her forearms as she tended too.

Phil gave an attempt to smile, but crushed it with a grimace when Mangle just stared at the floor fidgeting, and Foxy didn't pay heed to ANY party's petty unconformity.

"Hey guys, look..." Phil started. "-I'm not feeling so hot right now alright? So I would imagine our little OFFICE HOUR," He snickered. "-Isn't very friendly at the moment-"

"That's downsizing the shit, Mm?" Foxy interjected, and Mangle said nothing.

"Foxy, its not about what happened last time, its-"

"Oh? I wasn't AWARE." She radiated dangerously in his direction, eye-patch flicked upwards and hook-tip barely grazing above the fur of her arms.

Phillip could potentially understand her plight, it wasn't easy to handle whatever emotions were flowing through her head after what, like, twenty years of not knowing them? He got it. How do you handle being physically/mentally... WHATEVER she had going, towards someone after that amount of time of solitude?

Kind of a nasty, unspoken conversation among the masses, right?

So he tried to compromise as always.

"I understand why you're mad-"

"Pfft. No you don't." Foxy factually huffed. "-No you don't." She repeated.

"C'mon that's not fair, you didn't let me finish-"

"See? If you knew ANYTHING, Phillip, you'd realize FAIR is the last word you wanna use around me..."

"Foxy just let me-"

"I've only known you a week, Phil, don't expect me to let your little point of view on me go like that-"

"Alright, that's enough! Fox' just stop for a second-!"

"What are you my father?" Her gold and white teeth snarled out at him, and her arms suddenly fell away, and that damned hook was hung by her hip like a assassin dangled a dagger in wait.

He gulped, kept an eye on it, and held his hands up angrily.

"I'm trying to tell you about the stress here, my reasoning for what I have and WILL say, and your cutting me off about last ni-!"

"Yep."

"FOXY SHUT UP!"

For a second, Phillip actually thought someone else had yelled in the office, and when it turned out that the bark came out of his throat, his hand clapped over his mouth as he spiraled to burn holes in the door behind him.

That wasn't good.

Not at all.

But at least he'd know the reason if she tore out his rectum with that hook.

There was the longest period of silence he had ever been cursed by before he went to turn, to say SOMETHING along the lines of an apology.

Of course, that little intent flew down the drain when his world whooshed past, the Mangle gave off some kind of complaint for Foxy to stop, and his head made contact with the metal of the door, back thoroughly compressed with it.

Two, yellow glowing eyes were in his face faster than humanly possible, which only gave more inclination to just how quick she really was.

The fact was, if you pissed Foxy off, she'd make you regret it, big time.

Phil just tried to keep calm, even when the hook he had always been so cautious of, that SHE had been cautious of, pressed into the ribs of his hoodie, and bumped the skin underneath his shirt.

He hacked a bit from the paw clamped over his lifted throat.

Foxy just stood there, hook brandished, eyes wild, Mangle giving off a shrill outcry for the action to stop every five second, Phil could've swore Foxy's shoulder jerked a few times from physical attempts by the mental patient to make it end.

She tried to move her mechanically affixed jaw, at a loss for what to say now that conflict was occurring, she just rolled her tongue, with no sound.

Finally, after what was like years being suspended by an angry animatronic, Foxy bowed her head, grumbled loudly, and barked out her frustration. He slid with a hiss of movement to the carpet below, and coughed a few times while rubbing his neck.

Frankly, Mangle had no idea what to do, she just sat in the center of the office, and stared between them in panic.

"-Y-You..." Foxy couldn't find a better word that wasn't reserved for those she hated. "-Damned SHITHEAD!"

"Matthew-" He hacked. "-Has me in on stopping them! Foxy, I wasn't-" Another interjection of his neck. "-Getting all pissed because you TOUCHED me last time! Jesus... I thought you would be over that already!"

"How could I get over that...?" Foxy mumbled.

"-Because I'm trying to adjust to you woman!" He snapped with some amount of irony. "-I've never exactly TALKED to a living animatronic before! God, THAT'S why in addition to the stress of destroying Care-Bear outside! I'm trying to get used too at least making contact with you..."

Nobody claimed any other time for words for a bit, and Phillip stood to his full height, cricked his back, and shuffled over to the tablet to check quickly.

The second he tossed it back on the swivel chair, he glared at Foxy again.

"So there, there's my reasoning for being a bit snappy tonight, Fox'. You told me you don't want to be alone? Then you need to learn alongside me, to COMPROMISE when things aren't fully understood by both people!"

Foxy gasped audibly when his hand clenched on the fur by her shoulder, and spun her to face him.

"-I'm sorry for my touchy little behavior, Foxy, look-"

Again, she stood there, slack jawed, when he clenched his hand to her paw, and tugged lightly.

"-I'll even shake your hand from now on whenever I see you if that helps the situation."

The more he talked, the more Phil's voice lowered in volume, he glared at the floor meaninglessly to all but himself, noted how Foxy just hugged her own shoulders at a complete loss as he.

Honestly, that was perhaps the best reason to stop yelling.

Like he was trying to persuade himself with those few moments ago, before... THIS.

She was indeed dealing with emotions he couldn't fathom, that had broiled for so long, it was passages of time he ALSO couldn't fathom.

Phillip blinked, and forced himself to reach up and take the animatronic's paw into his fingers again, finding the alien sensation of inner mechanics wrapped with... Something more LIVING, to be strange but not entirely perturbing.

Foxy didn't meet his gaze as he stood there gawking with awe at their connection, that, normal people saw much insignificance with.

Hands went everywhere, it was NORMAL for them to be used for greeting, agreeing, disagreeing, reassurance, trust, care... A plethora of emoticons this isolated being before him had never been fortunate enough to take part in until now.

And the culture shock, in a way, was an unknown taboo that she couldn't get a grip on.

It frightened her, she didn't need to tell him for him to know.

The animatronic huffed lowly, and rolled his fingers about experimentally, twisting furred, partially metal digits about his joints as if she'd found an alien gel.

"I'm... I'm sorry..." She mumbled. "-I finally get a break, and I screw it up."

"Fox' you finally got a break and reacted like whatever GAVE you that break, expected. Just... Its no big deal," He rolled his neck with a tiny snicker. "-Just don't snap my spine next time, kay?"

Foxy's golden and white teeth shown a bit in the light of the office, and she responded almost on a breeze of air than any form of normal voice.

"'Kay."

"Does this mean friends?"

They both glanced to the Mangle, who, suddenly perked up from her curl on the floor, though they both saw she had deflated a tad.

"Yes Mangle, we were buds before the fight happened, we're good," He smiled at the slightly taller vulpine and patted her paw with his other hand. "-It's all good. "

Phillip let Foxy release his palm instead of breaking contact, and hurried over to the chair to snatch the tablet up. Quickly he flipped through the views, shook his head, then remembered the date, time and day labeled in the corner of the screen.

He sighed, looked over his shoulder to see Mangle smiling nervously at Foxy, who just patted the little weirdy on the head with her paw.

"I'm fine, Mangle."

"Okey-Dokey, Foxxxyyy!"

"Phillip? What is it? You look... Funky again." Foxy mused lightly.

The Mangle gasped audibly, and threw herself across half of the office to latch onto Phil's back as he stumbled forwards slightly.

"Me think they got a battering ram!" She cried. "-Barricade the door! SAVE THE CHILDRENZ!"

Phillip actually felt relieved her normal antics returned in full force when the door to his left thunked deeply as the Mangle body-slammed it, and hugged across the front with her limbs. Her one good eye darted between herself and Foxy.

"-SAVE THE WOMENZ!"

"Calm down, Mangle, the freaks aren't doing anything, its just..." Phillip ended his chuckle, and showed the screen to Foxy with a finger aimed at the digital time label.

"Today's Friday."

Foxy blinked with her metal lids, and shrugged.

"... Okkkaaaayyyy? That does have something to do with Matthews little 'Plan' that I still need details on?"

"Does it have TEA?!" Again, the entire office thudded when the Mangle face-planted into the ceiling with a sizable leap, and left a dent on the aluminum vent just recently fixed.

"No, and HELL NO." Phillip frowned. "My shift stops on Friday? Remember? I was worried about Fredd's mob and what'd they do when they found I wasn't here with both of you."

Foxy suddenly looked more anxious, and Mangle snapped to attention from her daze on the floor, completely unaltered, nor aware, of her prior kamakaze spree into two structural surfaces.

"I don't know, Phillip..."

"Me suddenly crave Kiddy-Katty bar!"

"Well, Foxy I don't think its a good idea to-" Phillip considered his words carefully, sighed, and scratched his head. "-To, LEAVE you here with them."

She reclined her head as if she'd just been asked to defecate in the middle of a public plaza, and Mangle froze mid-recline from Phillip's hoody pocket, a Kit-Katt bar firmly clasped by one of her hands.

"-LEAVE me here, Phillip?"

"Yeh, meh fink dat obsuurd!" Mangle muffled when the bar, wrapper and all, was reduced to mush in her jaws.

"Phil, I haven't left the pizzeria in... I don't remember. Where would I go?"

There wasn't an amount of courage available to any mortal man to say what poor Phil wound up saying next, and from that forth, there was no doubt divine intervention was at hand, because the powers above just found some good entertainment with this scene.

It just so happened they got kicks out of making trainwrecks happen one after another.

Phillip's lips were numb, and he almost just keeled over from cardiac arrest right then and there. Because he really wasn't in his right mind when he responded with five, simple, yet audaciously ludicrous words.

"You could come with me."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	10. Chapter 10

**_Hey dudes and dudettes, if anybody is interested, I made a audio trailer on Youtube for Camera Angles, its posted on this link-_**

**_ /eLIHS68KsCM_**

**_Welp, off to digital carnage then. I have to get my thinking cap on for my other stuff too, the Spring Semester just started and I'm driving on the highway at 9:00 at night now. Holy fruijal-muffins, people drive like the Mangle would at that time it seems. :P_**

**_Have an awesome rest of your day/night peeps, I appreciate the Reviews I've gotten, thankyouz._**

**_-Don_**

Chapter 10.

Let's Find a New Dungeon!

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"You are the camera, your eyes' the lenses, your nose the sound-receivers. Be one with the device, or better yet, drop this advice now and read a haiku book. It'll be faster and easier to understand. "_**

**_-Writ 29 of Surveillance. _**

The second that tablet croaked out its normal bleeps of confirming the time, Phillip stuck to viewing the pizzeria without break for nearly an hour, gesturing for his future... GUESTS, to stay inside the office with him a bit longer.

The nighttime atmosphere outside was beginning to barely light up, and Phillip knew if he didn't transport Foxy at least, soon, that the sun would literally shut her down due to exposure.

As creepy as it was, Matthew didn't need to know what he was doing, but Phillip used the knowledge he'd gathered over the misadventure now, and that was what really mattered. Since it was the breakage between summer and winter, mornings remained darker for longer.

He was hoping that would stall the light, not for himself obviously.

The stage now harbored the three, motionless beings that observed the area tenaciously, and completely still. Bonnie looked particularly miffed, if even possibly noticeable while frozen in rest. The rabbit animatronic was in continued conflict with the same fox keeping his only prey away.

So of course, he was angry, and Phil could deduce from what Foxy had told him, that Freddy was joining that shitshow soon as well.

"P-Philliiiippp?" Foxy murred. "-Whhheeenn are we... LEAVING?"

The door clanged as she shouldered into its side to hold herself steady.

It was 6:45, and he stared at the tablet for another minute, satisfied as he could be, shut it off and began to lock everything up, and close the generator.

There was a low drum of snoring, and Phil's back was hunched to the slumped over pile of junk that draped in a mess over his shoulders, the Mangle's jaws splayed as loud draws of noise scrabbled from her mouth.

She muttered something about a nickel, and the guard just rolled his shoulders to adjust to the weight. He stepped over to the tiring fox, and huffed, before slipping his arm under hers swiftly.

Through the hiss of his hoody brushing to her fur, some of Foxy's sun-drawn exhaustion was blown away as she zapped her vision to him with a quick turn of her head, her jaw quivered and that weird heat hued her facial features.

"Don't worry, I'll get you to the car and we'll get you some... Uh..." He stuttered whilst slapping the door button, and limping out into the hall with his companion in tow.

"-Some darkness. We'll get you some darkness." He said awkwardly with a frown.

Foxy processed his words for a few minutes, and actively responded when they had reached the back door near the Cove, he'd thought it too risky to leave through the front with the freakshows seeing them.

"From w-wheerrreeee?"

"In my house, Fox'."

The door just swung open when he grunted in sudden stress, Foxy swung herself off of him in a horrified gasp, she clattered her back to the brick wall of the building's rear, and hugged against it too stare at him, the sudden dark allowing more motor skills.

"-H-House?!" She snapped. "-I can't leave here, P-Phillip!"

"Yes you can." He grumbled, locking the entry with his key and motioning for her over.

"But I haven't in..." She trailed her speech, and dug her metal nails into the pavement of the sidewalk, her eyepatch flicked up, and she stared around the dark woodlands that surrounded the parking lot, individually traced patterns in the damp sky above.

"-In... In, EVER..." She was at a loss for words, and that allowed the guard to tow her again, and together, they worked towards the Ford still parked by the front.

Phillip eyed the main entrance, made sure nothing was standing behind the glass door to watch, and opened the rear door of the vehicle with his keys. He mumbled, and unceremoniously dumped the Mangle into a pile on the rear seat, as gently as possible for something on your back.

Her head rolled, and she snored at the car's ceiling loudly.

Phillip tugged Foxy to the front, watched the rising sun in the backdrop, and yanked the passenger side ajar.

"Alright, Fox', let's go!" He said enthusiastically as he could.

"P-Phillip... I can't..."

"C'mon Fox', I'm not leaving you here with them."

"But its been-"

"Around twenty years, I know."

Foxy was silent when he leaned closer, trying to multitask between comforting his friend, and adjusting himself to such proximity. The animatronic wasn't as... Intimidating at this distance, her glowing yellow eyes dimmed too him in emotional confliction.

Foxy rolled her jaw, and dimmed her lids to the ground at her feet.

Even exhausted, she sighed and scratched a line on the cement with her metal toenail.

"Trust me, you'll be fine."

"-Philly has... The... The BEST roomservice EVVAAARRRR..."

He smiled at the Mangle's drunken-sounding sleep-talk behind him, and nudged Foxy into the seat with effort.

She ducked her head, flicked her ears when they tapped at the roof, and leaned into the back of the seat with her knees pressed into the dashboard. Awkwardly, shifted about to get comfortable to whatever degree was possible.

The Ford shifted as the human jumped in and started the engine, making the animatronic jump at the sudden noise.

Phil grinned reassuringly, and the Ford backed away, all the while with Foxy now too tired from the growing amount of light to gawk, they left the lot wordlessly, and Freddy's would remain dark for its two days this week, as it did every week, every month.

-0-0-0-0-0-

It had taken Phillip longer to get on the freeway to his neighborhood than he had anticipated nor wanted, and sweat ran down his brow briefly before he snagged a tissue from the glove box and swiped it away.

Now that the sun was beaming down in its morning brightness onto the roof of his car, Foxy was out like an old tree log, and she was utterly silent, still, and idle in a slumped lean on the window of the passenger side, her jaw slacked open.

Even though he'd gotten the gist these creatures... Her KIND, if that, weren't entirely robotic, he still found it immaculately odd that small wheezes of sleep hissed from the inside of her throat.

In broad daylight, it gave the same effect onto her as alcohol did to a drunken person knocked out on the side of the road, so the animatronic wasn't going anywhere soon without his aid. Phillip sighed at that, scratched his hair, and focused on the road.

"Well... I can't say this will be... Entirely normal," He muttered, giving a brief rub of his palm on the fur of her shoulder. "But it's safer than staying in the dump."

He gave a 'Figures' face for that statement.

Fragging killer mental patients.

Never a good thing when they weren't human on top of that fact.

Phillip grumbled, suddenly aware of an elongated intake of air from the back seat, and checking the rear-view mirror, he started with an annoyed grunt as a widely splayed set of jaws opened back there.

The Mangle yawned much like a housecat would, except, she ended it with a girlish '-eeEEEEEeeekkk!' as her mouth snapped shut with a clang of metal, and her chops smacked a few times to confirm an end.

She looked about with a curious eye, a glint of playful explorative desire in it to the interior of the car, so, naturally, instead of doing what any logical being would do in a moving vehicle, with no recollection of GETTING in said vehicle, she enacted opposite.

In fact, Phillip went so far as to say she pulled a... Well, MANGLE.

The animatronic let her tongue droop out a bit as she wrapped her pipe limbs about the edges of the right rear mirror, tapped and slapped her digits about until locating the OPEN/CLOSE switch. She clicked it, and a light, morning breeze hissed into the car from the fastness of the highway.

"Mangle! Are you serious?" He wasn't sure whether to be amused or annoyed as he snapped at her.

She said nothing, and stuck her head into the air outside, her tongue swishing in the gravitational force, and her one good eye pressing back into its socket. She held onto the rim of the ajar opening, and just looked ahead with a big, splayed grin.

Nervously, he looked about the highway around him, and noted that there was only one car driving behind them, too the left inner lane.

Nobody would see if he let the little weirdy get some air.

Whatever, it worked for him.

He sniggered and kept vision on the road, noting exit 89 passing by, only two more lay between it and his turn.

That was some comfort then, so he really didn't notice when the Mangle's head had jerked to stare at the sky above, and her tentacles began to swing about outside the window. There was a thud in the passenger rear of the car, and he checked the view in his mirror, and shrugged...

Then his eyes darted back wildly.

Oh yes, somebody would indeed see THAT.

"M-Mangle! MANGLE! Stop it, get in here! NOW!"

There was a dulled 'Weeeeeeee!' above his head as the only thing that remained inside the passenger area was two feet-capped pipes that draped over the seats, the rest of the Mangle had vanished to angle at the top of his car.

Bravely, Phillip took a last look around his Ford, grunted, and reached behind the seat.

Her car-surfing ended with a cut off, dramatic shriek, and Phillip snatched hold of the two pipes, and tugged the animatronic from the roof of his ride.

There was a clank, and tumbling metal contact, and the yelping Mangle rolled and flailed back into her seat with a series of clacks and loud reports. She stood there, quiet, and sniffed at the window as it shut via his front-seat control.

"Are you INSANE?!" He barked. "What if someone SAW YOU?! What would you do? HUH?!"

She cocked her head at him, sniffed the air, and waved to her human friend with one of her hand-caped pipes.

"Me would wave!"

"Ugh... I forgot... You ARE insane... How stupid of me."

"Philly?"

"What?"

"Can I turn dial?"

He glanced as she leaned on the cupholders that divided the two front seats, and reached excitedly to the tuning wheel on the radio console.

"You listen to music?"

Mangle gasped dramatically.

"ME WUVVS MUSIC!"

"Alright... Knock yourself out..."

She looked at him funny, then the radio, sniffed, and grabbed hold of something behind his seat.

He went slack jawed, turned away from his driving briefly to gape in complete awe as the Mangle reared back with the fixing jack he forgot to lock back in his trunk, towards her own head.

"N-NO!" He snatched it from her quickly, grumbled, and laid it by his legs. "That means, you can use the God-damned radio! Not BASH YOUR CIRCUITS OUT!"

"YAY!"

The radio coughed static and garbled conglomerates of cut-off lyrics and words as the Mangle twisted the dial with an astonished expression of wonder. He bit his lip and snarled.

"What this?"

She left a station on that was playing Green Day.

For awhile, she sat there, staring at the thing as lyrics of the lonely road echoed about.

"-Philly? Why does he walk alone?"

"Its just the lyrics, Mangle..."

"But being alone is stupid!"

He shrugged as response.

The Mangle chattered incomprehensibly, and twisted the dial once more.

She stopped at a station with America singing a Horse with No Name.

"But the horsey has to have name!"

"Well it doesn't here-"

"MADNESS!" The Mangle shrieked defiantly. "-Horsey has to have name!"

"Tell that to the group, not me..."

There was a thud as the Mangle flicked the radio with one of her feet.

"Name the horsey Bill Jenkins."

"Mangle its not that big of a deal-"

"But what if they meet Policeman! And they have identificationz and the horsey don't?"

"That's just..." He chuckled. "-I dunno, that's just funny."

"Well me has nickel!" A clink of metallic disturbance, and she gestured the coin that she STILL had from the whole driveway fiasco, at the radio, and pushed the dial to silence the song.

"-Pay your own toll, horsey meanies!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

What was surprising about the entire trip, was that after the near trainwreck, Mangle was actually calm and collected, and Foxy just... Sat there and looked pretty. You know, pretty unconscious.

Phillip Linn had never felt this comfortable around things he didn't know before, especially with such adjacent space between them and him. It was odd, kind of freaky, but after a mere week, Foxy had now grown on him with the fact she was just a troubled creature looking for someone to at least talk too.

At first their relationship had been one of interest, she found want in chatting with the only human in her lifecycle she could have full hours of conversations with, and he was intrigued with a talking robotic creature.

Simple.

Then of course, Foxy's absence from such gifts excelled her growing desire to expand on just being acquaintances.

Phillip couldn't even touch her fur without getting a little buggy.

Yet it was clear the animatronic had a thing for him that even SHE couldn't shake off.

Whatever that THING was, Phillip felt himself feeling horrible for being a tad... Repulsed. As nasty and cruel as that word sounded for basically rejecting someone, especially someone that was experiencing such a rough life, it was the only he could think of.

He knew it was wrong to look at that way, but how else was he supposed to react? She was a living, breathing and talking robotic contraption in a children's pizzeria? Kind of awkward to just go along with it as a normal human being.

What's that my furry, partially mechanical, dusty smelling automated friend? You think I'm hot? I think your hot too!

Not exactly acceptable on modern day Earth.

Phil actually was grumbling beneath his own breath when the Ford bucked from his brake and fixture to PARK.

His daylights brightened the white paint of his garage door briefly, they went dark when the key slipped from the ignition in his clenched palm. Sighing, he looked behind him to see the Mangle preoccupied with burying her face behind the passenger seats towards the trunk.

"What are you doing?" He asked tiredly, rubbing his temple.

"_'E ike cottn nandy!_"

"The heck-?"

Phillip swung his door open, not minding when Foxy jolted awake with a startled, exacerbated gasp, and catapulted himself to the side of his car. The passenger side was yanked ajar, and before the security guard could even snap for the animatronic too stop, his mouth just jerked to stillness, and his brow twitched.

The same loose flap of leather that had been torn behind the leftwards passenger seat, many months ago from when he lifted a recently purchase lawn weedwhacker from the trunk, the dude at Home Depot forgot to mention it still had batteries.

So, Phillip pressed the button dumbly, screamed like a woman when it buzzed in his car, and threw it onto the lawn as it powered down.

The damage had already been done, so, Mangle made it worse. Of course.

He just bit his tongue when Mangle's head jerked away from the tear, a quite noticeable bulge clamped within her mouth, and her one eye wide like a platter.

"_Iiiii iLLLLYYY!_" She muffled.

Phillip looked between her and the absent puff of foam-interior from the bitemark torn into the seat, the prior weedwhacker damage peeled away by eager Mangle-teeth.

The Ford shuffled as Foxy clambered from the front seat to open the door.

Phillip stared at the smiling Mangle with an emotionless expression, and held his hand out for her to spit it out.

His fingers flexed in his direction when she sniffed at them dully.

"What that for, Philly?" She giggled.

Again, seeing the bulge absent from her chops and... Anywhere else, told him all he needed to know about the deranged animatronic's consumption abilities.

All he could muster was a quick twitch of his eye. Nothing more.

"Foxy? You alright?"

Phillip lost all conception of the fact his car was slowly being mangled by a freakshow with the same name, and hurried over to the front door of the Ford, where the tall, furred vulpine creature stood, eyes locked to the front of the house.

Foxy rocked a bit in her stand, shook the car as the daylight sucked her energy away, and forced her to balance on the doorframe briefly.

Phil hurried over, and slung her hook-baring arm over himself again.

"-P-Phillip-?!" She squeaked.

"Hold on there, wobbles, let me help you..."

Foxy said nothing, hissed as the light bore on her from her helped trots beneath the overhang of his porch.

The second the rays of the sun weren't touching her, she quaked oddly, in a quivering sort, and snaked away from the human with a slip of motion, reforming that urge to enwrap her chest with her arms. Foxy kept her gaze to the floor as he retrieved Mangle from the backseat, came back to the porch with said weirdy over his shoulders, and put his front key to work.

"Phillip..." Foxy muttered. "-I'm like... Really..." She huffed.

"Don't worry pals-o mine, I'll close the shades and everyt-"

"Phil!"

He yipped, the key clattered to the wooden floor, and the Mangle had a wide eye peek over his hairline again.

"Holy frag! Why are you yelling?"

"Phillip I'm... I'm really overwhelmed right now..."

He scratched his head, picked the key up and unlocked the front door.

"I've NEVER been outside... I've never had a friend too INVITE me in their HOME..."

"Well then I guess I'm the first!" He arched the door open, looked around his mostly woodland-block to make sure no one was active in the area, and gestured for her to enter after him.

Foxy watched him like he was crazy, and the Mangle flew inside the house with a triumphant cry. The chandelier in Phillip's dining room squeaked noisily whilst it was used as a swing.

Shaking his head, he waved her inside.

Foxy couldn't move when he did that, or when he stepped back out to take hold of her paw again.

The sudden contact he had kept initiating was one of a puzzle here, a puzzle that would combine into the basic panic-attack she was getting at the moment.

Twenty some-odd years of being alone, never communicating largely with any others than those she hated and likewise, fighting evenly strong monsters in turn, sitting in silence and dark in a dusty, forgotten Cove...

All that ended with the sudden appearance of this stupid little human.

She now had someone to talk with, laugh with, understand things from and debate. He helped her fight the evils, offered assistance during the dreadful nights and finally, gave her sanctuary in his home.

Yet to display such gratitude, Foxy only garbled unintelligently, allowed her facial features to hue terribly, and stepped inside the doorway quickly and wordlessly, her paw draping away from the young man.

Seeing the current situation, he wasn't offended, he just nodded, grinned and followed to close the door behind himself.

In fact, he'd have been worried if she DIDN'T react that way.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"She left, you say?"

"Mmmhmm. Up with that meatbag, got in his little driver and-VROOM! Gone! Gone..."

"Interesting. You see this is why I like the human, yes?"

The response was no less a dismissive wave of a paw than any other solution, surely, because insanity drowned him and everything he touched every waking moment of existence, but also, because that insanity worked through the cracks of chance.

Who was anyone but HE too call himself crazy? Anyone still alive? Quite few.

That only meant that he succeeded with insanity at his beck and call, with madness ready to lash out and consume his foes on his command.

Freddy was always out of his mind, he preferred it that way, never hadn't. The world was a giant tinderbox in the grand scheme, there was so much mystery, confusion and disagreement, that fires were something to brew over years and erupt in a storm in a brief second.

All it took was a maniac to light the fuse, and by the end of the arson, the maniac usually left more scarred by only HIS own hand alone... If the cards were dealt to the right sides of the table.

However, no amount of material, no promises other than chances for carnage, could win over the lesser of his kind. For certainly, Chica was a freak, an unstable packdog that despite the childish deception, was capable of atrocity, was willing to put those capabilities in use for his word.

She just gawked a minute, her multiple sets of jaws within her fake, plastic beak splayed in silent shock.

"B-But the human IS meat! He is prey! PREY!"

"No doubt to such, my girl," Freddy grumbled. "This is why I LIKE him, I appreciate his ability to cloud our foe's mind, hmm? Look at it in a higher perspective, chance this with me..."

Stepping away from the darkened stage, Freddy's feet thudded the ground in a rumble only a massive beast could make, he waved his arm in the direction of the hall to the Cove. Chica kept an eye on him, minding to give glances to the hunched shadow in the back of the stage too.

"Foxy! Darling lass, once as prim as the gears come," He smiled. "Just as strong as you, me, faster than us and just as so... To ole' 'B..."

Freddy's paw fell a digit to each of them in turn with his words, he waved blandly to the ball of darkness scrunched up in the stage's back, upper level, snickered when it pulsed in a heavy grunt.

"Foxy, the one animatronic to resist, to remain PEACEFUL to the people here, will now be undone by one of those people."

Chica garbled, her eye-lids gave a repeated spasm.

"I can't WAIT to taste the blood... Really. I can't... "

Freddy actually deflated inaudibly with knowing, he grunted to Chica's lack of comprehension, angled his chin to the stage again.

"Alright, 'B... At least keep YOUR head on its sprockets for this escapade, Hmmm?"

"Blood is blood," The misted response came dreary from the shadows as Bonnie nodded briefly to the quaking asylum captive. "-I'll spill it when I think I can."

"That's all I needed to hear!" Freddy clapped his paws. "See? Self control is the lady tonight. It can be every night, if we finally END this."

"If we can kill her, we'll kill her," Bonnie snapped, the sound of a clanging wrench echoing. "That isn't the definitive outcome here, butchering the guard IS."

Freddy frowned, lacked comment when Bonnie readjusted his jaw, and threw a small toolbox back to its place somewhere among all the instruments up there.

Tapping his hip with drumming claws, the bear tried to push a button, for kicks.

"What say you with the guard? Anxious for everyday cattle?"

"If YOU could control this frigging bloodlust the FREAK has been petrified with, you'd understand."

"Chica, go... Somewhere else..." Freddy grinned to realize he had just dismissed air, angled a brow at the ajar door into the kitchens, and stepped to the foot of the stage.

"Alright, bloodlust. That's your reason?"

"I said my fact, not how you could see it..."

"I'll take it for now. Don't stress, 'B."

"Stress? For the pile? Just dumb, Fredd... That's a stupid thing to say."

"Facts can be perceived STUPID by many... Especially when they're shit out of a venomous orifice."

Bonnie straightened himself back there, angled to stare with beaming, white-glowing eyes to the bear. He looked utterly hateful, and Freddy mentally cackled to the taste of this delicious little game he was torturing the rabbit with.

It was actually disappointing that Bonnie was learning, because this time, he didn't bite like he had before.

Nay, the purple killer just smiled with his newly fixed jaws.

"Get a dictionary from the janitor closet you bow-tied little bitch." He chuckled.

Freddy's teething grimace faded for a masque of a devilish grin.

Bare your teeth to it... The teeth take the brunt of the tide here, it allowed self-control, it allowed him to buy time, and end all around him.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11.

A Mess Wrapped in a Mess.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"Think of it this way, the larger the building, the more cameras you can fit in extra corners."_**

**_-Writ 32 of Surveillance. _**

Probably for the first time in a week, he was able to relax somewhat, without the same amount of distress as before. It was amazing, actually, the ability to just put his feet up on the ottoman in front of his couch, lay down in a deep recline...

Phillip's soft seat indented when he began to snore, and he was completely unfazed when a tangled blob of junk smacked onto the cushion he was on, and garbled out an incomprehensible statement about being excited over the amount of cabinet doors in the next room.

Surely, as the Mangle began to explain her love of using the handles as jungle-jim bars, she noticed her friend wasn't reacting or responding, and a light drone of humming breath left his nose every so often.

"Philly...?" She tried, poking his forehead with one of her spare fingers. "-Are you dead?"

She prodded his head forcefully this time, and shrieked when his noggin just slouched over his shoulder in a dismissive snore.

"PHILLY'S IN A COMA, FOXXXYYYY!"

"He's just sleeping, Mangle..."

"Oh... He recharging!"

The Mangle yipped in relief, and frowned down at the carpet of his living room from her newly snatched position onto the ceiling.

Foxy rolled her eyes to the fearful jump her companion had made, and watched without comment as the Mangle dangled lower to the floor, and lightly 'Stood' on her array of pipe-limbs to smile at her cheekily from the ground.

"Hiiiiiii Foxxxxxyyyyyy..." Mangle waved with a foot.

"Hi, Mangle..."

Foxy grinned sheepishly for a mere moment before shrugging her shoulders nervously again, and shifting in her stand by the end of the room, her back pressed lightly against the plaster wall. She was so awkwardly feeling right now, that sitting in these... COUCHES, didn't sound so appealing.

Now, Phillip was out like a light, it was the middle of the afternoon, and the sun was bracketed from sapping the energy from her in the dark room, as Phil had lowered the curtains, and left a single lamp on next to the medium 'Television' at the head of the room.

She was intrigued with his description of this Television, the ability to have access too 'Cable'.

Sure, she knew how TV's worked, she'd watched them briefly at the pizza place a few times when Matthew had one in his office, or when one was propped in the eating areas.

Maybe she was just bored, a little excited to see the new channels, but Foxy sniffed idly, her ears draping backwards a tad, she stalked over to the couch opposite of the snoring Phillip's, and took up the tiny gray remote in her paw.

She flipped it around in her grasp, grumbled when the Mangle vanished into the kitchen to finish downing a mug of mixed teas Phillip had foolishly left for her, and aimed the device at the television.

Foxy smacked her paw over her chops to hold in her yelp of surprise when the box lit up, and the screen grew bright with the image of some well-dressed female human behind a desk.

She angled her head curiously, glanced at the knocked out guard, and pressed the VOLUME button to raise the sound slightly. The woman talked about something called 'Annual Taxes' and how somebody wasn't happy about them being raised.

The vulpine animatronic snorted, having no clue what this garbage was, and found herself growing a tad forced as she sat on the very edge of the couch she'd gotten the remote from. She actually was so bothered with it, that if she scooted forwards an extra inch, she would've flopped on the carpet.

Angling her backside against the soft cushion, she placed the controller by her hip, used the tip of her hook to locate and press the CHANNEL key a few times. Her knee supported her paw into her chin, and she flicked through views of several different things.

More people with fancy outfits talking about weird, unknown subjects to nobody in particular, sometimes they stood in front of odd-looking, moving maps, or numbers written above the words 'News' or 'News Channel'.

She guessed they were like the journalists from 1987 in the pizzeria...

That was all the incentive she needed to grow angry briefly, and flick those channels away without even a glance.

Suddenly, she changed to another station, and watched curiously as a tiny logo reading YES flipped away from the bulk of the screen, another man in a suit came up, and she almost changed him until he said something about 'Spring Training'.

"Pfffftttt..."

She blew out her chops in lack of preoccupation, and stared at Phillip's sleeping form, wishing he'd wake up and talk to her as the suited man went away, and a large dirt and grass field came on the screen.

Foxy's eyes readjusted to the screen, her head still angled in the unknowing human's direction.

The strangely shaped patch of land was lined with more bleachers than she could count, more than had ever been brought into her Cove so long ago...

She drummed her nails nervously on her chin as the Mangle clambered over the floor from the kitchen, humming some raspy little tune with a tiny bag of marshmellows wrapped in her tentacles. Foxy chanced a quick look at her, before returning to the great field on the TV, she bounced a bit as the Mangle threw herself onto a adjacent cushion to sit.

Mangle bit open the bag with a little tear of plastic, and shoved a wad of marshmellows she clasped between the toes of one of her raised feet into her maw.

She chewed noisily, and bounced slightly on the seat like an excited five-year old human child would, watching the TV with interest.

After all, her bestest friend was doing so too.

"Foxy?"

"Mmm?"

"Why do they have big sticks?"

Indeed, a man wielding a wooden club stepped onto a white-painted diamond-like shape in the dirt criss-crossing the grass, he tapped his shoe on a square of what looked like white plastic, and rolled the club in his grasp.

His face looked at another man, dressed in a differently colored shirt, that held a ball and an oversized boxing-glove thing.

"Why does he have oven-mitt? Are they making cupcakes?"

Foxy raised a brow and shrugged, giving the Mangle a chatter of confusion with another clump of marshmellows rammed down her throat.

Foxy actually reclined her head back when the guy with the oven-mitt/boxing glove reared back with the ball, and wailed the thing in the club-holder's direction.

"Holy crap, these humans are freaks..."

"DUCK!" The Mangle shrieked with her mouth full, only to be interrupted by a "SSH!" from Foxy. The whacked animatronic blinked, sniffed at Foxy's raised finger in her direction, and stuffed more marshmellows in her mouth with a playful giggle.

Just when the ball would've hit one of the three lunatics on that white-painted pattern, the club wielder swung his weapon, and the ball made a great clacking sound as it flew into the distance.

Foxy watched in complete lack of understanding as the man ran to trace the dirt shapes in the grass, passing more of those white plastic plates in the ground, and cast glances to the airborne ball as it soared across the field.

She blinked when more oven-mitt/boxing glove guys ran under the flying dot in the sky with they're covered hands raised to catch it.

The Mangle rose in her seat when the ball kept flying, and suddenly, the bleachers in the big field erupted as people cheered, the ball vanished behind one of the walls dividing the seats from the grass and dirt.

"What in the living fu-?"

"TOUCHDOWN!"

Foxy rattled in her own fur when Mangle shrieked in a cheer next to her, she chastised the little freak with another "SSSH!" and a raised paw.

Thinking curiosity overriding her judgment, she growled and flipped the TV off to glare at the Mangle.

"Awwwwwww, me like Teevee Foxxxyyyy!"

"Can't you see that Phil's asleep?"

"But he in recharge! Can't come out of recharge unless want too, silly!"

"Mangle... People... HUMANS, don't work that way." Foxy sighed while clenching her brow with her paw.

The Mangle blinked her one eye, looked at Phillip, then her, and repeated the pattern a few more times before shoving the last few marshmellows left in the bag, AND the bag, into her mouth with a crinkling jerk.

"Me don't get it." She muffled mid-chew.

"He's not a... Animatronic, Mangle, he sleeps... Humans do that to rest their bodies..."

"Why don't wake him up, then?"

"Because that's not nice, he hasn't slept in awhile, leave him alone."

That seemed to submit more of a message for her companion than Foxy gave the Mangle's thought-processing credit for. The white-furred little animatronic just shrugged a bit, and fiddled with three of her pipes on the cushion in front of her.

Foxy sighed and bore holes into the snoring guard longingly.

"Foxy...?"

"What, Mangle?"

"How much you like Philly?"

The vulpine jerked back to look at the questioning Mangle, raised a brow, and attempted, then failed, to respond.

She coughed.

"W-What?"

"How much you LIKE Philly?" Mangle repeated, gaze still glued to the couch cushion.

"L-Like? You m-mean, LIKE like?"

"MmmHmm." She shook her head a few times, and Foxy grumbled in retort.

"More than I should, Mangle... There, I said it."

"Why don't tell him?"

"Because! I've only known him a WEEK!"

"So?"

"SO?! Are you insan- No, I'll cut myself off there. Are you TRYING to embarrass me?!"

"No..."

"Well then don't say or do anything! Your an animatronic too, Mangle, you know... I'm-I'm-" Foxy waved her paw and hook around dramatically.

"-I'm POOFING out so much excited pheromones right now, even YOU could catch a whiff..."

As if the walls came down at that time, Foxy just huffed in gradually growing distaste with herself, and even a bit for Mangle, unrightfully so, she hid her face in her splayed paw's fingers. That was enough to stall, and ultimately kill the conversation, for then, a deep ringing quietness hung in the house blandly, it gave way for the entire atmosphere to sour. The Television wouldn't cure this one.

Phillip snored in a brief hacking sound of finality, and he shook his head in a startled gasp.

"W-Wha... Who...?"

He looked around his living room, and let his eyes fall on the moping, clearly miserable Foxy as she hid her face in her palm, and the unresponsive Mangle who, strangely, didn't go into cardiac arrest from excitement of him waking up.

Scratching his sleep-mopped hair, he remembered why they were here, in his house, precisely, and worked a drowsy grin.

"Hey pals-o-mine... How are ya?" He chuckled groggily. "Why are you both so... Quiet?"

Foxy lowered her paw away and smiled toothily, and frankly, if the guard wasn't half-out of it, even HE could have read past the masque of her true inner explosions happening. Instead, he smiled back like some dunce, and stretched on the couch cushion with extended arms.

"So, you're both here for the... Ahem, weekend..." He stated with some realization to the depth, casting glances about his home, the one place he went to nowadays, to get AWAY from things like his two guests, and instead, was inviting them inside.

They were going to be here with him for two days.

Two. Fragging... Days.

48 hours.

A long time.

"Oh... hell..." He muttered into his palms before standing bolt upright. "So what do you both want to do? We've gotten this far in a week. Holy crud, so, what kind of mayhem can we have in two WEEKEND days then, eh?"

The Mangle smiled at him, giddy.

"Can we has cupcakes?!" She quizzed loudly.

"No, Mangle we can't ha-"

Phil stopped himself, saw how the animatronic began to wither back down alongside her hook-bearing companion the more he spoke, and came to the conclusion it wouldn't hurt to have a CONTROLLED hobby with the little wierdy...

Alright, if he entertained them, socialized with the lonely half-robotic acquaintances he'd made, it could only benefit everybody. Right?

"Okay, Mangle... Maybe we'll make... CUPCAKES, in a few hours, hmm?"

"CUPCAKES!" Mangle cried, sitting up and bouncing on the cushion repeatedly.

"Hey, Fox'? What's wrong?"

His worried question met no answer, at least, nothing more than the grunted out drone of vocals that Foxy belted out from her crossed arms.

He sighed with knowing, stood up to stretch his legs with a few popped joints, and stepped tentatively over to the animatronic in a leaned over-hunch on his couch. He gestured for Mangle to look at him.

"Hey, Mangle, you remember that... SWING, you love?"

Just mentioning it was enough for her to give him a little 'o' shape on the front of her elongated chops, and he shifted in his stance with a small snicker as the scrappy-appearing mess flew past him with an excited yip.

He ignored the squeaking ceiling bolts in his kitchen, the yips of rattling excitement, and reached out slowly to Foxy below him.

"Hey..." He said lowly, shivering a bit when he rubbed the fur on her shoulder, he rocked his palm a few times to lowly nudge. "Hey, Foxy, c'mon don't be that way..."

Foxy reclined from her slouch, and looked at him with beady, yellow-lit eyes, she blinked and gave off a weak smile.

"S-Sorry, bad habit, Phillip..."

"Foxy I'm now pretty determined to make you happy in your stay here, so, tell me something you've always wanted to do, like, a board game, or drawing, or a movie, a video game, maybe we can drive somewhere, anything!"

She traced a pattern in the cushion with the side of her hook, and practically sat on it to cover it from him when he stared, awaiting an answer.

She huffed, and her ears flicked about.

"P-Phillip..."

"Why don't we fix you up?"

"WHAT?!"

His couch creaked as she flung herself to press back into it, Foxy glared at the young man like he was mad, glowing eyes wild, teeth displayed in a fearful clench. With actuality, this didn't startle him, uncharacteristically, just as he was expecting her nervousness by the front door earlier, he sort of expected THIS too.

Phil nodded with a small grin.

"-F-FIX?"

"Yeah, I have a toolkit in my garage. We could patch the damage on your... Uh, body, up. I've fixed my Ford too many times to count, Fox'. How different could fixing literal holes in the car's underside be from fixing holes in your arm, or something?"

Offering his hand graciously, the security worker's palm held extended, he tried to put on his best supportive face as possible, thinking that, perhaps if vocal persuasion didn't work, at least the ambience he set, could.

Because it would undoubtedly help the entire situation, it was the one thing he was completely sure of.

What could the negatives be from repairing her after all?

Examining the offered hand like a face-hugger from Alien, Foxy didn't know what to say, do, how to respond, and it was all too much.

"N-No... NO." She stammered, jolting upright from the couch and reeling away from him in a daring recline of her height. "-I'm... I don't w-want... I CAN'T..."

"You have to stop saying you can't, Fox'..." Phil sighed. "When you know you're up for it, I'll get the toolkit. But only when you say its alright. Alright?"

The animatronic shook her head affirmatively quite rapidly, and stood there very quietly and reclined, eyes locked to his, arms clasped again, her foot drummed to manage the stress on the carpet with a bouncing pattern.

Looking her over, he deduced the scene to the best of his ability, saw it for it was, and nodded to take his leave to the kitchen where, the squeaking of a loose bolt was apparent, and he was needed to stop Mangle before half of his ceiling cracked off with that damned chandelier...

-0-0-0-0-0-

Precisely when the day reached its mid-point, was when Phillip attempted to convey something for himself to alleviate his overworked on this last-second decision he had made on abandoning the pizzeria.

A week ago, if he had been suggested for this role, the poor guard might have had a stroke right on the spot, but since the scene had... EVOLVED, to such a conundrum, such results were hardly unexpected. Most acutely, Phillip was more relieved than AFRAID at this fact.

But that was the weirdest thing out of the entirety of this all, he was RELIEVED, not running around in circles screaming, and gradually emptying his bowels and bladder of all bodily waste.

Of course, the way things were going was better.

It felt... Odd, but right.

It certainly wasn't AS dangerous as the latter.

And it saved him several clean pairs of underpants. Always a plus, no doubt.

However, as Phillip briefly left to enter his garage through the main door, he mulled on just how his job had turned into a occupation of stopping killer teddy bears and their lackey ducks and hares. Comically, Phil felt his musing leave him in a blow of annoyed breath as he sighted his lawn's edge.

He stomped across the grass in the evening light, and yanked his dented, broken mailbox from the ground where it had snapped off the splintered stake shattered on the earth between his grass and the pavement.

With all the woodland around, his street had no sidewalks, which, for this particularly, was probably alright.

Mumbling to himself, he brought the ruined stake inside his garage with him, and tossed the box back on top of the torn-up dirt claud that symbolized where it once stood proudly.

Inside the garage, he retrieved his toolkit and some nail-packs to fix the stake.

He broke off the snapped-up top of the wooden pole with a lumber axe he kept behind one of his shelving units there, threw the debris in a trash can, and laid the pole and box on the grass to begin fixing.

He applied some masonry glue to the wood, stuck the box on it, and began to pop nails in the more ruined sections of the splinters with a hammer.

As he smacked the nails, he never noticed the animatronic walk up to him until he heard her sniff awkwardly, to fake clearing her unused, static nose.

He yipped and flew on his back to the face the sky... And Foxy.

Blinking, he twitched as the adrenaline flew away, and smiled at her a little.

"Hi...?" He chuckled. "-Just fixing the mailbox."

Whether Foxy actually knew what a... MAILBOX was, he didn't know, but she seemed more preoccupied with him than his work.

"Alright." She replied.

"So... Um..." He mumbled and reasserted his indian-style sit on the grass to reapply a dropped nail from the tumble. "-What do you need, Fox'?"

She stood on the grass, wiggled the robotic-digits that made her clawed toes in the green material, and mentally was intrigued as she watched Phillip intently. Her hook was hidden behind her hip again, and she cocked her head in curiosity as he smacked the nail down with the hammer he held.

"Phillip... Why did you bring me here?"

"Because I don't see you get torn up by the death trio back there." He countered quickly. "-I told you why."

"Yes but... WHY don't you want me to get... Torn up?"

"Because friends, don't let FRIENDS, get TORN UP, Foxy. You saved my tookus from quacksalot AND the killer Trix Rabbit! I owe you. Don't deny it."

He went back to propping the pole on the grass to examine as Foxy stared at his feet silently.

"Phillip... I'm lost here."

"What do you mean, Fox'?"

"I have no purpose. I'm not used to it here... I feel... Out of place and wrong and just..."

Foxy babbled that argument away as he stabbed the stake back into the dirt, adjusted it briefly, and stepped into her general frontal space to glare at her.

Even SHE was thankful his house was surrounded by trees, because his neighbors would be FREAKING out with a big six-foot tall robot character from the creepy pizzeria down the highway trotting around his yard...

But instead, she focused on him and his held aloft hands.

"Foxy... C'mon, I did this to help you. I asked if there was anything we could do to get you comfortable here? ANYTHING."

Foxy blew out her previously calm breath in a harsher speed when he held her paw again with his hands, she noted how he didn't flinch as he did so.

Phil grinned dumbly at her, and she felt heat invade her face AGAIN, much to her own self-judgment.

"So please tell me, what that ANYTHING, is, and I will make it work." He finished.

Foxy blinked, her eye-patch flicked up as she looked around the yard, then over his shoulder, and then over HERS to the garage. The tools and shelving units didn't interest her much... But the series of cutting wood shapes and adhesives...

"W-What are THOSE for?" She pointed her hook into the garage, squeezed his hands in her paw.

He followed her gaze and gesture, and smiled excitedly.

"Those are my old wood-working crafts! You want to make something?"

"Like what?"

"I dunno, think of something wood... A birdhouse, a table or a stool... A chest or-"

"-Can we make a ship?"

"A ship?"

"A... Erm... A SAILSHIP...? I'm sorry, Phil... I just... I feel so childish asking such, I've spent so long living in the Cove with... BABIES basically-"

"A wooden Pirate Ship, eh? Aw hell yeah! Hold on I'll get the glue!"

Foxy grinned from ear to ear when he hurried past to begin gathering the needed materials, and she sighed contentedly, still teasing her feet in the grass she stood in.

Maybe this was the sign from above that her temporary stay was a good thing. Maybe it was time to see a brighter possibility and stop being negative and saying she couldn't do things...

Maybe it was time to put more than twenty years behind her.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"-NO."

"Come on, ole B'! It'll be like the golden times! You know? SCRAP PLANTS and the helpless workers?"

"You don't get it. Look at me. LOOK. I said NO."

"Awww, B'! Don't be a stick in the mud!"

"Conniving little bloodsucker..."

"Use something I HAVEN'T heard for once, B'!"

"Call me that again..."

"Or what? ... Did not you hear me? Something I haven't HEARD BEFORE."

"Take this crap elsewhere-"

"I'm asking YOU to do that. Should I wipe you too?"

Bonnie actually swung that time, he reared a balled fist, used that agile, unbelievable speed he had killed tens with to some hope, and failed as per-usual.

Freddy just... Couldn't be surprised, outsmarted or fooled... Out-talked or worded... It was the barrier that the bear put up to make himself seem unbeatable. But every opponent had their weakness... It had been decades and Bonnie hadn't found this hole in the armor.

Sad really.

As expected, his fist didn't meet in a collision with Freddy's head, but it was indeed halted in movement, it just so happened that the intended target had lashed out impossibly FASTER.

"-Really?" Freddy mumbled as if stupefied with Bonnie's blunt, and utterly tactless attack. A pathetic dismissal to the claw he held via purple-furred wrist.

Bonnie snarled and flexed the wickedly sharp nails in the air by the bear's left ear.

He never got a chance to lash out with the second paw, because the rabbit's chest felt the kiss of fire when Freddy indented Bonnie's gut with his heel. He released a dire grunt from the impact, and tumbled into a table with a series of clangs and clacks of metal.

A chair rolled over him, and Bonnie swept his face to clear it, made to stand, and Freddy beat him to the cause with a stomped foot.

Again, his world flashed, something in his waist snapped, clattered loose into a thigh.

"B', you've driven my nerves again, eh?"

"-EAT. SHIT." He hacked incoherently.

"Nah-ah see, here's the deal... I asked you to do something. Repeat the last twenty years would you? I ask. You give RESULTS. Now..."

The front door to the pizzeria smacked roughly open again, the night wind whistled inside lowly, and Freddy bore teeth with a jabbed finger into the dark outside.

"Your fleshling friend took Foxy somewhere other than HERE."

Bonnie shuffled in the mess he lay in, eyes burning up to the bear as he strode past with a content grin on his fanged mouth.

He patted the rabbit's shoulder with a quick swing of his palm.

"Go on, Fido, blood for the bloodhound..."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	12. Chapter 12

_**Hi peeps, just a little warning with this one, there is some violence in the first part of the chapter, and there is some description of blood, so if you are not into that, I would recommend skipping it, but like I said, SOME description, nothing horrendously graphic. **_

_**Ooooo the atmosphere is darkening! It must mean someone in this room is responsible for...**_

_**',' **_

_**0,0**_

_**MUUURDEERR. (Fancy Englishmen Theme Here)**_

_**Anywayz, I hope anybody who reads thinks its kewl. Have an awesome rest of your day/night dudes and dudettes.**_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 12.

Avoid the Shadows.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"Who needs a college fund anyway?! I just got the most recent Canon model!"_**

**_-Writ 38 of Surveillance. _**

Nighttime was something he had, at the least and most unsatisfactory, appreciated from the inside of a raggedy, torn up, smelly bunker that had acted as his home for decades. The darkness was only glimpsed upon through chances of unhindered windows in the greater.

Dust and muck clouded the glass in the places he could actually observe the hours of dusk, and surely it dampened his excitement more than his lack of prey already did.

Through smog filled halls of ugly design and craft, through arrays of children's patterns and depictions of innocence with careless youth, he had been a killer stalking among such unrealistic lies of joy...

No intent was ever made by any other than the old man to stop them, because no one else could pierce that VEIL of joy and innocence to see the truth. Freddy had kept it that way for longer than he could remember.

One thing though, was quite factual with that lack of mind span... The humans had CHANGED with the loss of his earliest recollection.

The cars looked... sleeker, more industrial and less decorative, some even appeared blockier and armored, they were roomy, spacious and weren't as loud or imposing. The trucks were massive now, they growled on stinking engines and dragged wheeled crates larger than a toolshed.

The buildings were resculpted similar, blockier, firm, larger and taller, more lit at night.

There was no smog rising from billowing smokestacks, no noisy jalopies rumbling down brick roads, the street lamps were all ELECTRIC, not interlaced with oil ones.

That was around the last time Bonnie had been outside in a prolonged hunt, when humanity was still years away from its greatest mass atrocities of the 21st century, when there was honor and crime that was punished at critical mass.

But instead, now the world was dirtier, machinery was different, clothes and buildings, the very AIR, were all different. Disorienting. STRANGE.

Bonnie slunk through hedges and ferns without much thought process to it besides initial interpretations, all that mattered was how he could use these structures to find and kill prey, how they could conceal him.

Traveling along the length of the freeway that led to nearest developments had taken him a greater few hours, he had steeled his bloodlust from the passing cars by killing a choice few squirrels that scurried from him when he approached.

Of course, even the RODENTS weren't faster.

Nevertheless, when small shops began to dot around entrance ramps, and side streets crossed alongside houses and smaller woodland, he knew his goal was within reach.

The dark helped when he sprinted to cover the space between walkways and forest areas, the roads were generally thin, and he was hidden again as quick as he broke cover. Midway through his search, he continued to taste the air with tentative snorts.

He could smell hundreds, of... Humans, of PREY. There were so many! They were everywhere! EVERYWHERE!

His movements became erratic, his arms lumbered, legs and feet stomped and kicked, he salivated. There was a flicking sound as his nails unsheathed.

This was enough. It was all ENOUGH.

Forget the damn bear's errand! He could burn, forcing Bonnie to be his hunting dog! Not fathomable.

But he needed to kill.

He needed it NOW.

Bonnie's teeth chattered and he growled between chomps unintentionally.

Suddenly, there was a hiss of vocals, a puff of smoke behind a nearby alley.

"P...Prey..."

Bonnie had no willpower by that point, the street was covered in a frighteningly fast sprint, padding footfalls of metal, purple-fur enwrapped feet clacking across the pavement.

Behind a nearby gas station hub, one of the staff stared blankly into the night, a middle aged man, no older than fifty, a blaring head of a smoke clenched in his lips, smoke blistering from his nostrils. He huffed to the night, flicked the butt away, and went to return to the counter.

Then, like out of some freak accident, there was a crash of discarded metal, a pair of trashcans flung across the backlot of the establishment loudly, the man cried out roughly to a shuffling, hunched shadow nearly eight feet tall.

The tint of purple contrasted with four lines of silvery white, the air sung.

"PREEEEYYY!"

Bonnie's voice curdled as he screamed, the drug he had been deprived of for years seeped into his body and chilled his circuits.

There was silence, darkened red bloomed like an opening rose underneath a huddled, unmoving body. The crumpled heap was separated in dark girth only by an elongated piece of its right limb being cast a few feet away.

Bonnie let the viscous material run on his paws, he inhaled the metallic scent, he released a deepened ramble of victory, and picked up the severed forearm of his victim. He toyed with it, chattered more, than dropped his kill with a hurried swing as more shadows rounded the lit ambience of the gas station behind.

The rabbit snorted down at the corpse, snuffed the air drunkenly, and sprinted for cover in the forests again.

There were screams of bewilderment in the distance as he retreated, yet the noise left him faster than the intoxication ever could. It was nearing morning when he was able to memorize Foxy's scent and dispel the blood from his senses.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Can you hand me the little orange tube there?"

"This one?"

"No no, THAT one, yep. Alright, I'll twist the cap off, and I want you to try it."

"Me...?"

"Yeah you! Come on, it's easy, don't worry. Use your two fingers to apply pressure, here... And... Here. Then aim the pointy end at the surface here, and squeeze a little. JUST, a little."

"Am I doing good?"

"Perfect!"

The sight presented within that little garage was more astonishing than even the subjects could give credit for. Not so long ago, Phil had no idea, nor belief, of such creatures to exist within a rundown children's pizzeria...

But yet, the old rickety dumpheap sported not one, but FIVE of these robotic-like organisms, and after fearing for his life against three, he'd found two that were willing to be allies, not hunters.

It turned into something no direction of a stupid security camera could ever predict, and with a trio against a trio, Phillip had confidence that with proper skill and bravery, they could overcome the obstacle at hand.

Strangely, that awkward cooperation between two abnormal animatronic outcasts and their new fleshy buddy had offered the one before him something more evolved, in her perspective, at least. He wasn't sure whether it was good or bad... Maybe neither.

It was certain this... Being, had a thing with him that was forged on sheer impact.

Perhaps infatuation upon first sight? It was a possibility... How ELSE would a outcast react to such a sudden overwhelming amount of care from a kind person opposite their own gender? How would HE have reacted if they were switched?

Phillip... Couldn't decipher it.

He just clapped lightly when Foxy beamed at the adhesive trail she'd made on the last curvature of wood, and, without further delay, he slowly propped the top of the ship onto the bottom half, and grinned with a brief thumbs up.

"Ah, see, not so hard, eh?"

The craft and carve weren't award worthy, there was no stand to prop it on... But that small sailship was better looking, less the paint, than any of the flimsy crap she'd been dealt in the Cove.

Foxy didn't say anything at first, and twisted the new, shiny decoration in her paw like a trophy she'd won. Which, to her view, it was one she had earned with the help of this security guard.

Her lids drooped in a hanging stupor to the cheerful human, and it was perhaps a full minute before he realized she had been staring at not their work on the tabletop but...HIM.

Phil grinned nervously, shifted on his sit with her on the workbench before a small modeling desk, as Foxy angled more of her weight into his side and shoulder. There was an encroaching sense of tension, and, frighteningly, it wasn't the confrontational kind...

If Phillip hadn't steeled himself in controlling his emotions, he might have felt sick, but he did best to retain his self-training, he blinked at the desk before him, shivered when a metal-palmed paw began to prod at him.

Foxy had never made such a blatant advance, it was driving him up a wall.

"-F-Fox'... Come on..."

She hummed unintelligently, traced a circle with her fingers on the lap of his jeans.

He inhaled sharply, startled.

"Whoa! Hold up! HOLD UP!"

"Are you... REALLY that oblivious?" She purred.

"-Oblivious...? I have no- HEY! Don't-!"

"-WHY?"

"Because I feel... Uncomfortable... With this..."

"But... Why?" Foxy's paw retracted, her eyes beamed brighter than they normally did, and they widened in a hurt sort of prospect, her shoulders indented to her center. She clammed up.

"I don't understand..."

"Well... I-I... Foxy, seriously? I don't just have evening no-pants-dances with friends actively! Especially when they... Aren't... Human..."

The animatronic thrummed in her throat, and she indented her brow to stare at the bench between their hips, he heard her hook draw a small line in the seat behind her leg.

"Foxy... Please, you know I didn't mean it like THAT."

"-I know."

"Than just give me a chance... To... Find a way to make something work..."

"SOMETHING?"

"I don't know if it'll be what you are aiming for now... I mean... Fox', do you... Um... Do you even have... Oh Christ,"

Phillip ran a palm down his forehead and scooted a bit to the left when Foxy raised a brow at him.

"Do I even have... What?"

"You know..."

"I do? What?"

"You know!"

"I don't!"

"A-um... A-!"

With every higher syllable, he angled a hand down to her center leg connection, a bead of moisture running down his forehead in fear of causing a scene like he had prior resolved.

Fighting with the animatronic wasn't going to help anyone.

So how in the living snazzlecaps did he ask this question without coming off as a assuming poop bucket?

Foxy blinked, looked at her leg, tapped it with her paw, then at her inner thigh and shrugged at him with a raise of her forehead.

"Phillip, I don't get it!"

"Aggghhhh... T-this!"

Tempting fate, and heeding frustration, he jabbed a finger to the space between her thighs, noted her grow pale beneath her rust-colored fur, her eye-patch flicked upwards in a tiny gasp from her snapped-shut maw.

Foxy darted between staring at her finger and where it aimed, than, stuttered, coughed to clear it, and gawked at him with insult.

"Foxy I'm sorry! It's just, how do-?"

"ARE YOU ASKING IF I HAVE A SNATCH?!"

"Well thanks for putting it so bluntly!"

"O-of! OF! OF COURSE I DO! Do I look like a GUY to you?!"

"No! And I never said or thought so!"

"Foooxxxxxxyyyyyy!"

The argument was understandably halted for the moment, when none other than the whackjob slung herself in through the doorway into the house, tentacle limbs swinging to latch onto the wooden-poles that supported the garage's ceiling.

The Mangle hung to view the scene with wide eyes, an unreadable straight path making her chops.

She blinked and sniffed about the air.

"Foxy? You smell like happy time."

"MANGLE." Foxy snapped daringly, making Phillip sink lower in the bench to avoid a possible detonated nuke.

Mangle looked at both of them, gasped lightly, and bounced in her hang excitedly.

"OooooooOooo! Does this mean baby PhilFoxy's now?!"

There were two noises of loud volume that happened near simultaneously, not exact, but near.

The first was a hollow thud of wood and the clink of tiny, rattled metallic work tools as Phillip's forehead fell onto the desk before him, and he was out like a light to this whole scene.

The second sound was higher, brasher and more sharp, it happened a split second after the poor young man took a turn for the worst in relations to a door nail. Foxy didn't take any chances with trying to talk her way out of it anyway.

Instead, Foxy retrieved her fingers over the nearest heavy concentration of metal, and flung outwards in a dashingly quick thrust of wind.

The Mangle made a little squeak as she was nailed dead-center her brow with a turpentine canister, a resounding bang of impacted thin steel, the careening bush of tentacles flew across the garage with an outcry.

However, to the latter, much to Foxy's dismay, the Mangle saw getting belted with a blunt object as more an opportunity to fly on a rollercoaster than take it as an actual assault on her person. She let loose a 'Weeeeeeeeeeeee!' through the whole four second flight, and ended it spectacularly with a snap of plaster.

The wall kicked up dust, left a vulpine head-shape spider-crack, and Mangle vanished behind a shelving unit with a cluttering collapse of cardboard and the breakage of glass.

Silence resounded for a coupling of moments, Foxy huffed and stood from the bench to gaze at Phillip sadly.

Said guard muffled something unreadable into the wood.

"...Phillip?"

"MMmmM."

"Phillip... Can you please just get up."

He reclined on the bench and stared at the ceiling, not minding the tiny shuffling of debris as the Mangle found new trinkets to sift through with little mutters of chatter.

"Foxy... Like I said BEFORE this, just... Give me time, please?"

"Phil-" Foxy cut herself off, folded her paw and hook in her lap, and sighed heavily. "-Okay. Okay... I'll... I'll wait."

"Thank you." Phillip smiled lowly and stood to check on the Mangle. "You of all peeps should know not to piss off Ms. Kung-Fu."

Foxy snorted comically to the jest, watched with a indented chop and annoyed expression as he tugged the tentacled mess out from a series of crushed cardboard boxes.

"Hiiiiiiii Phiiiiilllllyyyy..." Mangle muffled gleefully, completely unfazed to the prior happenings, and holding an old workboot in her jaws tightly.

"Hey, that's my old OLD workboot." Phillip pointed out with interest. "-I thought I had thrown it away, guess you found it."

The Mangle latched onto his hands as he draped her out of the mess, and curled on his shoulders, taking the boot before her face to examine it.

"Philly! Can me keep it?"

"Suuuuuure..."

"I name it Benjamin!"

"You want to name my boot... BENJAMIN?"

"Yeah! Me like Benjaminz Frankalz! He deserve boot named for him!"

"Oh lord," Phillip laughed in his palm. "-I don't even..."

Foxy glared at the Mangle again, smiled sadly at him, and continued to examine the pirate ship they'd made as she stood to the side.

That whole mess bothered her, but if Phillip wasn't going to take her advances than... She might as well respect his wish. It would allow her more of a chance than, undoubtedly.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Night befell them faster then anyone in the house could suspect. For, the fact was that they were so preoccupied with this alien proposition of a weekend here, that they weren't paying attention to the brightness outside.

Now that it was entirely black, Phillip felt that edge in his step again, in his own HOME.

What was the deal with that garbage?

Normally this was caution thrown in the winds of that damned hellhole pizzeria, not his dining room. Yet Phil couldn't nudge this feeling, this... Anticipation, moreover. It was like something outside was off, like something that shouldn't be in the woods was there.

This pointed to nervousness that the animatronics back at the restaurant had got up and followed the highway. In fact, this pointed to one of the freaks walking around the urban developments seeking Foxy's destruction.

-And his blood, of course.

It was scary, very much so, because with all the exotic musings he had experienced with these deceivingly looking animatronics, all the socializing, the laughs, the alien understandings... He was still risking his life at the end of day, indeed.

Putting away all of the adventurous vigor to the whole situation, that undoubtedly none, if a handful of humanity before him had EVER been involved with, the things they were against would harm him, they would kill him if they got hold of him.

This wasn't like a game, or a movie, how ever much it felt so, because he would be ended, slowly, by angry monsters locked away in children's characters' appearances, it would painful, horrifying... Throughout the lightheartedness... Darkness was laced.

It made him afraid, and the matter became less funny as the night wore on.

By the end, he decided to close every shade in the house, he used all three locks on his front door, installed by him a long time ago in case of an emergency, right when he had first purchased the property.

He put the mace can in his bedroom's nightstand by his bed, found a small pepperspray bottle in his older wallet he kept in the closet, attached it to his keychain.

Digging through, he retrieved an shining pillar of a blunt, and tentatively, he dangled the aluminum bat to and fro before his hip, grinning briefly at the inscription of his own name when he was too young to know the difference between 'Script' and 'Print'.

He requisitioned a cleaver and steak knife from his kitchen drawers, stowed those in the nightstand too.

"I don't feel right with this, Fox'... Kind of like how you felt just coming here." He admitted, eyes glued to the wall in front of the TV room's side sofa.

Said animatronic paced at what he said, blinked at the floor.

"I'll tell you if something happens, Phillip."

"Don't waste rest on me, Fox-"

"I DON'T rest, remember? I'll keep watch." She smiled.

Phillip considered her, sighed, and stood to face her.

"-Foxy, if someone... SOMETHING, does show up, please don't try to take it alone."

She visibly cringed at the thought of backing down from one of her old enemies, shivered with self judging, but shook her head in agreement.

There was snoring upstairs, and it was quite apparent the Mangle wasn't as keen on the evident threats around and abound, so, Phillip rubbed his palm into the fox's shoulder reassuringly. Again, she jolted a little in her own hide, but crooned at the touch.

"I'll help you. I'll get Mangle to help too."

"Mangle can already help, Phillip... I don't want to see you get... You know the drill."

"Mangle can fight?"

"If she sees her, ahem, FRIENDS, in danger, than yes." Foxy chuckled. "-Chica still has a grudge against her from their last fight."

Phillip looked curious to that, and folded his arms.

"Last fight?"

"It was the first time she had gotten in a scuffle with them... I helped her win that one."

"Chica held out against both of you?"

"No, her AND Bonnie... It became quite clear to Mangle they weren't joking or being pranksters when they started... Tearing pipes off of her. Phillip, I know she's annoying, and she is rough to keep under control sometimes but..."

Foxy rolled her shoulders, and noted his softening expression beneath the hunched posture. He had an inkling of what was about to be said, and frankly, the idea, the notion, wasn't at all nice to consider.

"-Just keep in mind, Phillip, Mangle has had it rough, rougher than ME, if that gives you a clue. I went into seclusion on good terms with humans... With children. Mangle didn't. Combined with the abuse from mafia-bear's goons, it... Broke her.

Phillip, she copes with those screwed up emotions by finding the carelessness and simple joys of life. She mixes that with a bit of stupid behavior, adds cat-like attachment to people who are kind... This is the 'Good' Mangle, there's something else in her head that borders the bear's antagonism."

The guard let his eyes draw lines in the carpet at his feet, he shrugged, words just kind of lost themselves when he thought of something.

The snoring upstairs was silent, Foxy was examining her hook behind her hip, and he was now glaring daggers at the nearest closed blinds for the room's main window.

Some kind of poltergeist of emotional dampness slithered into the Linn residence that evening, and it wouldn't leave until morning. So while the sun had yet to rise, the knowledge was mutual among all three of them.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	13. Chapter 13

_**Hey dudes and dudettes, I finally got the thinking cap back! Yay. **_

_**So I think the mood of Mangle might be darker in this chapter, I had a few peeps PM me about Mangle's past, and I even got to have a very interesting feedback exchange and conversation with a fine chap who typed up some ideas on this part with me, so hopefully I was able to combine some of the stuff he pointed out with the stuff I had in mind too.**_

_**A big, appreciative Thank You! to TheAlphaVulpine for Reviewing my story and discussing details with me, hope you like this one dude. Lol.**_

_**Alright, tell me what you think peeps.**_

_**Have an awesome-sauce day/night!**_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 13.

My First Stalker was Friendly...

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"Who knows how much of our streets are under public surveillance anyway... As a security guard, keep in mind, someone always has a camera above yours, and the day you disrespect those cameras, you disrespect your very blood."_**

**_-Writ 40 of Surveillance. (LIMITED TO SPECIAL DELUX PRINTS. PUBLISHER INVITATION ONLY.) _**

The first thing that she heard when it was least expected, was insect life. Crickets, katydids, grasshoppers, the strange droning of fat, sausage-like bugs Phillip had called 'Cicadas' faded with these new additions, leaving the house to feel entirely alien.

There was no milking it, Foxy had her ears perked to this chorus of sounds she had never heard around the pizzeria, things that were afraid to trek the accursed woods surrounding that building... Found a community here to sing.

The night appeared much less imposing, and the wildlife put her at an ease she hadn't felt like so many other things in the same passage...

Around twenty years.

So much hadn't happened to her in that time, SO much. Yet it all blew back in a single week, like it had never left, never abandoned her in that dusty, filthy, dark and forgotten mockery of a pirate's den.

The curtain was no longer there to shroud her from the rest of the building, there weren't clouds of dirty air to clog her robotics, nor distant growls from the other animatronics as they practically stalked the Cove's exits for her...

None of that existed here. Just what had been taken from her for half her existence.

She was... Young, compared to the others, she knew that Bonnie was nearly eighty... Around so, because even HE didn't recall where or what he was when his life began however it did. By her own assumption, Bonnie wasn't always a purple, sickened looking robotic hare, in fact, he might not have even been an animatronic...

Chica was young too, not as much as Foxy herself, but relatively new when in question with her long-eared buddy and the bear.

Speaking of which, as Foxy reclined on the sofa she sat upon, let the ambience outside lull her to close her eyes, the mafia-wannabe was disturbingly quiet for letting her just... Leave. In fact, it was more worrying that Freddy HADN'T attempted something.

Her metal lids flicked ajar again, she grew restless, kicked her leg, and threw herself to a stand to tread about the darkened lower floor of the house.

Up the wooden stairs in the home's entry foyer, there was a droning hiss of air as Phillip went out like a burnt out bulb, and an even louder crackling of snores whilst Mangle found a comfy spot atop a bookshelf in his bedroom.

Foxy sighed and nicked an itch on the back of her ear away with her hook, than stared at the shining metal as it reflected its sheen in the dark.

Even though the hook was her... Weapon, of sorts, even though it had saved her more times than she cared to count nor admit too, she saw it as a abomination affixed to her.

Foxy was ashamed of the thing, she wanted a paw, like her left appendage, not this rusty, ugly strip of titanium that was used to inflict physical harm on other things, even if those THINGS were crazy... It was perturbing to have something like THAT for a HAND.

Sneering, she paced in the foyer, kept her gaze at her toes again, the air seemed colder, the dark more threatening and the insects quieter. Consistent with her own doubt, Foxy felt angry at the new outlook of her first peaceful night, she shook her head rapidly and stared the table-mounted lamp by the front door.

Still shut off, she walked over and fiddled with the shade without any reason, the switch flicked and she blinked in agitation when the bulb ciphered the black away brightly.

Mangle's snoring upstairs snapped to a halt, and Foxy huffed, turned it off again.

"This sucks..." She complained to no one aloud, mentioning the fact that even being AWAY from the hell pit was nightmare inducing.

God damn, fur-ragged, fire-spawned, deformed, shitbasket bear...

"One day I'll kill him."

She swept the blinds away on the front window to stare about the darkened lawn.

"I swear, I'll kill him. It won't be fast... It won't be stalled, and it certainly as hell won't be PAINLESS..."

To the scariest of wild conclusions, she sounded very hateful right now, possibly as hateful as the very creature she wanted to enact on.

Which brought up the usual double-standard between justice and chaos.

What right did chaos and evil have to hurt, maim, destroy, wreak havoc on the world? But then, what right did justice have to return those things unto chaos, and thus BECOME like it?

It was an argument that Foxy had pondered little, but for the few times she did, they left her with many silent nights of drifting off into space in the middle of a room, or memorizing every crack and plaster-bump in a wall from prolonged staring.

"Fooxxxxyyy...?"

Or it left her completely oblivious to words being spoken around her.

As it did now.

Mangle rubbed one of her wrist's into her one good eye, snapped her metal chops together, and blinked groggily up at her friend curiously.

"Why you not in sleep mode?"

"Mmm."

Too lost in aforementioned mental debate, all that the hook-wielding sentry could conjure as response was an incomprehensible grunt as she drew lines with her glowing pupils to the night outside the window.

Mangle chattered to herself comically, and hopped by Foxy's leg to get a better view of the dark pane of glass.

"Whatchya looking at?"

"Mmm."

"... Fooxxxxyyyy?"

"MMM."

"Is that Emu impressionz?! Me can make cow noise!"

"..."

"Foxy-?"

"-Oh god, WHAT?!" The taller one finally hissed, throwing the blinds to the window back into place, her glowing eyes bore heavily into the suddenly receding mess of pipes by her hip.

Mangle frowned, scratched innately with a foot by her chin, and remained silent for the longest of instances.

Clearly, or, maybe even obscurely, it depended on which party you asked; written across the broken animatronic's face was a spell of childish interest in basically anything that Foxy would find preoccupying, it was literally a last ditch attachment.

Because who else was Mangle going to follow around all day? It was why she was so into the poor guard besides her, he was a new set of ears, one that didn't tell her to go away, that didn't physically exact retribution on her when she didn't comprehend.

Obviously, Foxy's breaking down of the story to Phillip was more spot on than anybody thought.

THAT, was screwy.

But then again, a lot of people would say SHE was screwy, and Foxy wasn't all that bad behind the shiny, hazardous hook. Right? Possibly. Maybe.

Phillip wasn't in a constant state of shitting himself... She must have been doing something right.

"Ugh..." The world seemed hazier again, so she took it as a sign to cut the attitude, and mumbled her less-hostile response beneath her clenching paw. "-What is it, Mangle?"

"Me just worried... You not in sleep mode."

"I don't NEED to sleep, Mangle..."

"But sleep good!"

"Not for me, not after like thirty years of dozing in that Cove..."

"Me no get it."

Foxy huffed and leaned against the wall with her shoulder, her fingers drawing the blind away a crack.

Awkwardly to all but her, she snorted at the nighttime outsides.

"Do you like sleeping in the baseme-?"

"BASEMENT IS EVIL!"

"Sssh!"

The Mangle winced, bowed to the floor with a sharp angle of her snout.

"Sorry..."

"Its... Its fine, Mangle, just keep it down. Remember, Phillip's a human. He can't just turn himself off like we can..."

"Philly weird."

"Why do YOU think so?"

"He makes you smell funny."

The instant that was brought up, Foxy snarled lowly to a crouch before the little whackjob's face, pressing her nose into Mangle's personal space all too closely to enter the bubble.

Her hook came up and poked the white-colored vulpine's rib-section lightly.

"STOP. SAYING. THAT. AROUND HIM."

Once again, despite her rationality, her sane behavior and greatly kept composure when it came to interacting with other lifeforms, Foxy got a strange combination of a hybrid between expressions when she became frustrated at that moment.

Her face twisted in a furiously embarrassed manner, her chops heated, and her voice sounded agitated to a deeper extent.

Yet her illuminated eyes shown a hint of rage that usually lived in the freakshows' eyes...

Even with all her status as the 'Good' one of the four, Foxy couldn't suppress every single trait of being a mindless killing machine like her kin had devolved into. It scared Mangle to a point where it wasn't just from the FRIGHTENING appearance, it was of the prospect that her best friend could become like those THINGS...

So Mangle held no shame when she sounded quivering.

"S-Sorry..."

"Mind your own smells, girl..."

"Sorry!"

"I swear we already have enough problems with the bear and his lackeys, and now YOU come in and start harassing me over my worst emotions to date!"

"Me said-said sorry Foxy-!"

"I've defended you from EVERYTHING, including Phil up-there from calling you out on YOUR worst emotions..."

"I... I get it... Foxy..."

Again, even though Mangle didn't have TEAR-ducts to speak of, she sounded like a slobbering wreck anyway.

But for some reason, the way Foxy's week had gone, with this human, the increased hostilities from those bastardized demon-worshipping monsters on the stage, her own internal judging of everything she did, and now, MANGLE, no description needed... She didn't care how her companion sounded.

She was just angry. Angry at herself, and she was unknowingly allowing that to be taken out on the Mangle.

"If you GOT anything, you'd allow more motor-functions to stay with you than get locked up with your past..."

Even in the daze of letting emotions talk for you...

Foxy picked up the depth of that asinine statement.

And, hell, if it weren't for the sudden lack of ability to work her words out, she might have taken it back.

"Foxy... H-How... HOW DARE YOU."

THAT, wasn't Mangle.

Call it what you must, Multi-personality disorder for a animatronic, certain mental syndromes, a bipolar condition... But there was no real medical, or scientific, maybe even reasonable, term for what happened inside her mind.

Because all it took was a few words to give that... THING in her head a key, and the theoretical cell would fling open, no problem.

This wasn't a behavior, or a different thinking turned on by a broken mind, this was... Another Mangle, not THE Mangle, how else would one describe it?

"You think you have it SOOOO bad in that Cove, you think, that YOUR problems, give you the right to chastise others when they enact, based on their misinformation? On things they don't KNOW?"

There was a raspy, feminine tone, darker, deeper, sickly velvety, and Foxy couldn't respond to it to calm it due to the thrice pipe-limbs curled over her neck. All in all, the floor sure felt a greater distance too, and the ceiling tickled the top-tips of her indented ears.

Mangle's bad eye, the one that was a mere sprocket bulb lit pinkish/purple whenever she was active, it wasn't on, there was a black void here, and her mouth was splayed, the jaw lowered to reveal a set of sharp teeth she purposefully hid from other's views.

Foxy muffled an attempt to quell the thing as another pipe-limb flew upwards, and a tightly-clenched hand snatched over her snout, her arms became restrained, and her legs were squeezed together.

"Don't you talk to me about locking THINGS away. These THINGS are what I have been masking for twenty years alongside your-PITIFUL. DAUNTING. SELF-PITY."

Foxy wrung her wrists without effect, and the Mangle's chops curled upwards, less innocently then they normally did.

"Oh... Your GOLDEN, precious one," She scoffed highly. "You, don't believe me. HA!"

With a sort of shadowy snake-like motion, Mangle's tentacles writhed and pushed, and Foxy felt herself angled face-first toward the floor, the ceiling plaster pressed into her shoulders and back, she grumbled another stuffed vocal.

"Mmmm. How about this, darling?" The palm over Foxy's snout flicked away, only for its finger to line up with her nose.

"Your not fooling anyone, not even ME. I have the strength to keep the key from myself. THIS, this is the same garbage that YOU have just let out, this is the same ME, that existed when you still had confidence, when you were still HAPPY.

Did you notice? I did. I noticed everything. Because when you fold away the layers of sugar-coated scar-tissue, there is this unseen cover-up that no one will mention, or speak of, especially YOU.

It sure seems like we've had a run, right? That we've switched places? I mean, honestly, darling, I'm WAY more cheery than you during the nights at the ole' junkyard we call home. Hmm? That thing you have a habit of relinquishing this beautiful little key I'm always babbling about too?

Yeah... THAT thing..."

Even though to any normal being, this would be stressing, you know, being suspended by an angry unstable pipe-limbed animatronic into the roof of the room you were in... Foxy just kept quiet after that, she focused her eyes into the bad one before her.

That maw just screamed things at her, more than the speech of revelations from Mangle's doppleganger ever could.

But the new mad one finished its talking quaintly, anyway.

"-You wanted me to stop HARASSING you, to tone down the annoying behavior? Well everyone's got their own way of working out crossroads than... So YOUR way, ends with THIS."

Mangle giggled, and Foxy kept silent even when the metal hand was no longer preventing her from speaking, and the floor met her heels once more.

"Think on it, precious... The more you allow that tumor to swell, the more chance it'll spread to others... I mean, we went through it together... You know? Right? You must... You were so adamant on telling PHILLY about it..."

Now THERE was something to drift into space with...

The walls had rattled, there was the raised barking of an angry being ten times her size, someone that rambled about not being touched, the forced inclinations of being harmed should it resume...

Of course, as things would end, she had no comprehension for settling the matter without making appropriate apologies... Mangle had reprogrammed herself for such... So Bonnie and Chica started to pummel her.

The pipes being taken off didn't hurt, really, she did it to herself all the time, for repairs, or just for fun... But then they targeted her head with their knuckles. THAT, hurt.

The past, the REAL past, relived itself when they inflicted trauma, it always did.

So they were embattled with a wild, flailing mess of responsive, instinctual punches, Bonnie backed off, Chica howled in protest, but kept fighting, they tore into each other violently, quickly. Bonnie started to engage, but not with the largest of the scuffles...

Foxy jumped him from the rear, and they broke each other's hides over a period of several minutes, no victory, no defeat, but a mutual inclination to limp away in opposite directions.

Because the rabbit had SOME semblance of clarity with reality, he rationalized.

Chica didn't.

She kept swinging until her beak ate a wall particularly hard.

And all that left Foxy with too glare at, was the Mangle, still flailing, still screeching, still FIGHTING.

She had calmed the angry white-furred mess than... But this time, Mangle calmed herself, which was more of a statement than ANYTHING her cordoned off past could have said, and did wind up saying.

Like some nightmare that entered your sleep and left when you woke in the soft hug of sheets, Mangle's limbs receded, and Foxy kept her eyes on the carpet between her metal toes, the air grew softer. Mangle's head twitched, and her bad eye became hued by pink again.

When there was a raspy, shrill-acute concerned gasp, Foxy almost laughed.

"Foxxxyyyyy, what happened? Can me has tea? Me love tea! Me make us some."

-0-0-0-0-0-

It was concerning when she didn't see him.

He was right there.

RIGHT. THERE.

She didn't even flinch! There was no squint, no startled jump, not even a vocal announcement he had showed up. So what in hell's name was distracting this hook-bearing outcast's attention to the point where the blotch of movement wouldn't process?

Foxy had the eyes of a hawk when it came to spotting danger, yet Bonnie had crossed the lawn at least twice, he had scanned the house, observed a few varying angles, and now he KNEW he had found the right place.

This was her little flesh-bag's den, where she had fled too in some vain effort to escape what she really was, and what she was really a part of. It was disgusting.

He should have been able to muster willpower to charge the house, break in, duel her and beat her, dismantle her, then finally kill that guard as he slept... But Freddy wouldn't allow it to be that easy, and Bonnie knew why...

He always knew why, his own ego just clouded it to all others from his body-language.

Something would go wrong, as much as he'd never admit it, Foxy would get an edge, she'd react quicker, her hook would tear something, or broke something, that freak, the Mangle would tie him up, maybe even the HUMAN would shoot him, or spray that stinging can of mace again...

It was one against three, his speed wouldn't compensate an all out brawl against two animatronics and a slippery ape in such close quarters.

This wouldn't work.

So the bear would make it work. Again.

And he would be forced to become the next step in Fredd's little ascension... Again.

The same pattern that burned itself into his metal skull, would repeat, and repeat and it would not stop until he became independent...

Yet Freddy knew countermeasures to that happening too.

So Bonnie just ripped a branch from a passed fern as he vented against nothing he could control, the darkness swallowed him, the highway became visible again in the matter of an hour.

However, out of sick curiosity, or maybe something driving him, ANOTHER thing he couldn't wrangle, the same gas station where he had lost himself passed his travel, and its quiet, dark demeanor was lost to the blue and red pulses of light-topped cars.

There was a blocky, white-colored van, humans, PREY, lifted a drapery attached to a wheeled cot into the van's back... And Bonnie knew it was his prior kill.

He let his leathery tongue flick a few times, noted people garbed in dark navy dress shining cones of illumination from flashlights, little black boxes, walk-talkies, he believed, garbled static and voices from their collars.

One of them shined his light in the bushes he hid in.

He hunched lower, grew daring to the sight of prey, the smell of them too invigorating his addiction. Without much tactical thinking, or recognition, Bonnie kicked a stone to rattle it behind him in the woods.

The cone of light returned, the man stepped closer, a black, hand-held object clenched from his waist, and brandished in the general direction of his hiding spot. The walkie-talkie on his collar blared, and he spoke into it, distant words around 'Backup'.

Bonnie never gave him the chance of course.

The world rushed, the black L-shaped device was torn from the officer's hand, and he died with a quick, near silent hack as claws rendered his gut eviscerated.

Bonnie reveled in the blood, kicked the lifeless corpse to the forest outskirt's ground, and sprinted back into the dark, giddy, excited, lavishing over his desires being quelled not once, but TWICE. The concerns of earlier seemed loftier now.

Freddy wouldn't have laughed if he saw his planning still working in person.

He just would have smiled, as he did every time something worked for his favor.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	14. Chapter 14

_**Woo, sorry about that wait peeps. College is cool, but the stuff after class is a grade-A bi-awch. Lolzers**_

_**I'm typing a second chapter too, so I'll dish that out soon too. I hope anybody who checks it out thinks its kewl.**_

_**Have an awesome-sauce rest of your day/night my fellow Fanfictioners!**_

_**-Don.**_

Chapter 14.

A Multitude of Issues.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"Happiness can't be found in money, because it's endless numbers, thus your search will be endless. I can't say the same for intruders. They keep coming. The more of them there are, the more opportunities there are for guards like you and me."_**

**_-Writ 43 of Surveillance. _**

As always it seemed, when the dark receded, the world seemed tinged with a hint of indecipherable oddity, like, there was a little thing that was amiss, and that he didn't know what it was.

Strangely, this phenomena kept occurring, despite the prevailing wisdom that it was always proved something WAS amiss, in a very dramatic way or turn of morning events. Lately these reminders of the shitshow he was now stuck in were in his own head more than physically.

You know, he'd get up, get coffee, than sputter on the stuff when he recalled why the night was dreamless, and WHY there two walking, robotic creatures trotting around his foyer.

Of course, that scene didn't play out, because, obviously, we could never get the same reaction twice, no doubt.

So this time, Phillip Linn attempted to sleep away the troubles of being a demon-hunter for the week, and buried his face in the sheets of his bed, mumbling something incoherent about cursing his boss. That almost allowed his body to shut down again, it would have succeeded, undoubtedly, except his guest was named appropriately for the things she interacted with... Including comfortable atmospheres.

Just like that, she did her profession.

"Philly! That tickles!"

With an abrupt snore, Phillip's head darted from a wrap of sheets with bloodshot eyes drawing to the opposite bulge in the bed beside him.

His hands clenched, one dug nails into the linen, and another made a squeak on tugged steel.

The bulge moved about in another laugh, and folded away for the snake-like animatronic to pop her head out, and grin at him inanely.

"Hiiiiiii Philly..." Mangle said cheerfully, and waved a hand at him slowly.

The guard's brow twitched, and he folded out of the blankets without so much as a scream of terror or grunt of startled bewilderment. Over the course of a week, such prolonged exposure rendered him officially 'Mangle Proof'.

Despite being asleep mere moments ago, he was able to groggily ward off a yawn and speak, albeit quite slurred.

"Mangle,"

"Yes, Philly?"

"Get out of my bed... Please."

"Okey-Dokey!"

Phillip's fatigue didn't allow him to flip a T-shirt over his head properly or even with a sense of being prim, his arms flopped and flailed as the fabric tangled a bit. He began to adjust its fit as his bed bloomed in a cloud of ruffled, disturbed linen, and the pipe limbs of the Mangle let her shoot from the mattress all the way to the doorframe into the upstairs hall.

He blinked away an eye-crust on his upper left-lash, sighed, and spent the next few minutes gathering his sheets and remaking them.

As his hands worked, the real world lost its haze, he heard the Mangle announce something along the lines of her 'Bestest Friend' waking up, a grouping plastic objects clattered on the kitchen floor, there was a loud beratement from Foxy.

Quiet reigned again whilst his blanket was re-adjusted to cover the mattress.

"Imagine having her in this house EVERY day..."

"That's what I have to deal with, you know."

He glanced over his shoulder to Foxy leaning on the interior frame, grinned briefly, and stood to full height to stretch the joints in his back.

"Hey, Fox'! How are ya?"

"I'm alright..."

"You sure?"

"Nyep."

Now the fact that Phil was still suffering from bed-bewilderment of a freshly woken dude, didn't stop him from not liking the way she sounded, it was as if there was a barely hidden sense of a tinge in her voice.

But then again, the animatronic always, ALWAYS had something that was bothering her. Who could blame her?

He nodded lowly, and didn't challenge or call it out. He figured if it persisted, than there was cause for intervention.

"Great!" He chuckled. "So today's Saturday!"

"Mmhmm."

"Anything you want to do?"

Foxy looked up at him, and flicked her eye-patch back over her eye before shrugging.

Standing dumbly for the slightest, Phil adjusted his shirt, and scratched an itch on his forearm.

"...Okaaay... You just wanna sit around and do nothing AAAAALLLLLLL day?"

Again, she just burned twin holes in the carpet of his bedroom and shrugged lightly.

"How about we just talk?"

He suggested it on a whim, seeing as whatever was hobbling her thoughts seemed pretty blatant, if not entirely diminishing of her mood in this morning. A big red flare was that he'd only been up a few minutes, and even HE could read the trouble sign.

Foxy stared at him, chin still pressed to her furry collar. She shifted on the frame.

"About... What?"

"Whatever you want."

"..."

"What? No good?"

"Don't allude me, Phillip..."

"...Look, Fox', I managed to subdue what was irking away at you yesterday, what says I can't snag the baddies today, too?"

"Me."

"Alright well that's just being negative..."

Foxy huffed and toyed with the tip of her hook behind her hip facing the hall outside the room, her eyes drew lazily about the opposite wall.

She was so dismissive and eager to end the talk whenever stuff like this was brought up.

"Fine. Because there's too many points in time where the lack of communication has caused... INCIDENTS..."

Phil rolled his eyes to her embarrassed tone and clapped his palm a few times against his throat.

"I'm fine, Foxy. We all overreacted that night."

"Okay..." She mumbled.

"So what were you going to say?"

"You remember that... Other... The other side of Mangle, I explained to you...?"

"Yes. Why? What happened?"

Urgency littered his voice, he stepped closer and folded his arms.

"I spoke out of tune last night. I said things I shouldn't have said... Mangle's other half came out as reaction."

"Other... Half? You mean like, Multi-Personality kind of thing?"

"WORSE, than any mental illness you humans have come up with... I told you that it's another being in her head. Another Mangle that isn't as friendly and-"

There was the creaking of Phillip's kitchen chandelier again and the gradually increasing volume of 'Wee!'s coming with every tilting hinge-shriek.

Foxy bit her lower chop.

"-And UNIQUE, as the one we have."

Phillip blinked, scratched at his chin and leaned over to the side of his bed atop the nightstand to see he'd slept until 10:00 in the morning.

Whistling in awe, he looked at Foxy and never broke that concerned rigidness that had taken over.

"Lemme get this straight, this is like one of those kids shows where the character gets hit in the head, and they act all different, and sound different? Kind of?"

Foxy's eyepatch flicked up, and she narrowed said hidden eye with little idea as too what he was talking about.

Phillip shrugged.

"Yeah, you know, like that episode from Ed Edd N' Eddy when Ed got the pebble in his shoe? Yes? No? Nothing?"

"You are REALLY weird sometimes..." She chuckled whilst cupping her paw over her brow.

He frowned, and sighed in a musingly dramatic way before trying again.

"Mangle switches between two different minds at certain circumstances? THAT a good break-down?"

"Accurate."

"That's not a cause for concern here... WHY?"

"Mangle doesn't normally revert like that... She's only done it when the others have attempted to repeat the past."

"You mean come at her again?"

"Yep. She's never switched personalities with me or anyone else..."

"What the heck did you say, Fox'?"

At the question, her face tightened, the other flat of the doorframe in front of her became so much easier to keep contact with than Phil. She felt at odds shifting around like a squirming insect caught in a exterminator's general sight.

The world was always a nasty blur whenever these conversations came up, for most of her life she had shouldered away from the few humans that quizzed her on it. She ran from the past, as many victims of crimes had done.

However, there was only a group of people that you could allude the questions from.

Phillip was a rare minority for her emotions... He couldn't be mislead, it wasn't in the coding, per say. Foxy huffed at herself, as had become the habit.

"She was being loud. Agitating. She says things that I don't WANT her to say... She badgers and harasses and toys with everything in sight..."

Even in the low volume of her voice, she was ranting, and Phillip calmed his expression, but refrained from trying to touch anything on or around her as to avoid presenting himself a hypocrite from the talks that prior days.

Foxy gained a semblance of composure, squeezed her eyes in a heavy blink.

"...And god-damn it she's earned her place to do so... Its never caused meaningful harm, and its a better hobby than what the freaks do." She snickered in a murmur.

"Well I haven't known Mangle long enough to state ultimatums, Fox'. I can only go by your word. You've socialized with her more than anyone."

"That's exactly it. I've been keeping her composed for so long... I just let the barricade slip a little last night..."

"What did she start to goof around with that got you so upset?"

Again the cycle of reoccurring difficulty just persisted, Foxy seemed to clam up with anything that was brought up that SHE didn't like to focus on. While he could understand that, he also needed her to know her shyness wasn't helping this mess.

Every time he got rid of one problem, another cropped up.

When he went to say his piece, something in the kitchen thudded loudly, Mangle's shrill curiosity about where everyone went echoed upstairs.

"Just picture what happened in the garage yesterday, and Mangle summarizing it." Foxy snapped with a ridged lip.

"Oh... Well, it's easy for ME at least to ignore her commentary on that... Foxy don't let her bother you like that. She doesn't mean it in a vicious sort of way, I'm quite positive."

"I know. It's still embarrassing."

"Why? It's not like I don't KNOW already..."

"Even so, its grueling when she starts to blab about it nonstop."

"Then we'll sort the problem out when we get rid of the killer Care-Bear. But until then, cheer up, Fox'. Please."

Phil swatted his hesitation away with a courageous mental swipe of his own will, reached up, and clenched the balled, furry joint of Foxy's shoulder, he gave it a little squeeze, and felt suddenly lightheaded.

Surreal, wasn't the proper description... It was just, the supposedly robotic sections of her body felt quit REAL in certain portions, particularly her limbs, face, and from the brief contact he had maintained so far, her body as well.

So, maybe STRANGE was a better word for the feeling.

But whatever the case, he still thought her face reddening up was amusing, he shrugged off the haze, and started into the hallway when Mangle began to dramatically mutter about being all alone.

In the case of drama as well, Foxy didn't follow for a few minutes, for she found herself being drawn into yet another daydream.

Despite the ever-present fact she was acting in a way that would have put anyone who had known her longer, off, she felt quite self-judging for this little pointless game of child-like crushing she was the human.

But with the recent events, and the displays of generosity he had shown to her, she couldn't help it! Foxy wanted to denounce anything she had ever given a hoot about prior to know, snatch the fleshy bundle of pink-colored skin up, and divulge her deepest secrets!

She wanted to touch him more than she believed she was 'Permitted' to now... All of those decades of being locked up in a smelly, dank, dirty, and dark children's restaurant had done that too her.

She was a living, sentient, talking being, many humans wouldn't go so far to say a PERSON, but she had wants, comforts, and things that made her happy... And most of those had been stolen from her by forces she couldn't take on alone.

For once, Foxy wanted to stop focusing on things that she had to fight for the effort of good...

She wanted to be happy! To cast off this ridiculous shell of a child's character, a stupid, piratical, human-like vulpine that sat in a stage all day and rusted away...

Yet, as her paw drew across her furred belly in a mindless act of being lost in thought, she knew that this shell... Was HER.

Foxy was dirty, her fur was matted, portions of the organic mesh that surrounded her partially mechanical internals were torn away to reveal those mechanics. Her ears was ragged, and when she flexed her nostrils down at her own chest, she came to terms AGAIN, that she STILL smelled a little...

She didn't fly to another assumption that this was why Phil didn't see eye to eye with her.

He wasn't put off by her condition, or her filthy fur, or the damage to her hide... He was put off because she wasn't human.

And that made her angry.

Not at him of course... But just the realization that this was reality, and THIS was how it had allowed her to meet him.

Foxy ground her teeth to this thought, muttered a prolonged series of profanities, and left the doorframe to resume her unexpected travel within Phillip's house. As she came downstairs, the Mangle was already curled over Phil's shoulders, and silently gazing over his shoulder with a big smile as he read a culinary magazine on his kitchen table.

He flipped another page, and the Mangle made an intrigued sound to one of the pictures of a dish.

"What that one?"

"That's a raspberry cheesecake. I haven't made one in a LOOOOoooonnngggg time..."

"Why not make cupcakes for practice?"

"You really want these cupcakes, don't you?"

"CUPCAKES!"

"Not in the ear you weirdy!"

"Me sorry..."

Phillip just managed to flip another page when Foxy stomped inside the room, and jabbed a finger to the front foyer.

"That's the door to the garage?" She asked suddenly.

Phillip startled at her quick, blunt, query, and nodded slowly, not even noticing as Mangle inconspicuously reached out and peeled one of the magazine's pages out of the binding before wadding it, and stuffing the ball in her mouth.

"You still have that repair kit?"

"The tools?"

"Whatever? Yes?"

"Uhhhh... Yeah, I do-"

"In a few minutes, get them. I'm done looking like some cheap drug-addict coming into a crack house."

She loved when her attitude made her assertive, she really did.

-0-0-0-0-0-

There was a feeling that many people throughout the years had experienced when a moment of stress hung over their heads like a dampened raincloud.

It was the encroaching sense of sitting in a waiting room while your wife recovered from giving birth, or before the arrival of a doctor who has a scan result, or worse, the moments before entering surgery. Now of course, Foxy had never experienced any of these things...

In fact, she didn't know how, or what half of them were. Not being human had its downsides.

Yet if someone to could break it down to her in complete clarity, then that was the apocalyptic tidal wave on the horizon in her mind. It matched her thoughts precisely.

Her feet kept switching from bouncing their respective knee as she sat on the bench in front of the work table she had made the ship with Phillip on. Her eyes drew here and there, and the flicker of reflective light from a discarded turpentine can became the attraction to see that morning.

Foxy stared at the little dented thing, not because there was nothing else to look at, or because it was the shiniest thing in the garage (Even though it kinda' was...) It was because it reminded her of the incident she had caused.

It reminded her, that her lack of control had inadvertently led to Mangle's little excited episode, which led to her becoming severely angry, and that led too...

Well, SCARY Mangle.

Foxy was disturbed with none-other than herself for that mess.

SHE was the reason that Mangle couldn't contain that horror after tens of years of control. It really angered her, and it didn't help the broiling tornado of depression that ate away at her.

With a poof of air blown between her puckered chops, her eyes drooped in some attempt to tire herself, and dim the anxiety.

There was a clank in the back of the garage, and her eyes drew across Phil's back as he unlatched a final lock on the tool box that was leaned against the other wall in the garage.

He looked over his shoulder, and grinned supportively.

"Calm down, Fox'. I won't hurt you, I've been using these things since I was little boy. You just tell me what's what, and where to apply the proper tools. You know your... Um..."

She smiled at him as he spiraled around and rolled his wrist, trying to sum up a sentence.

"-Your... Uh... Your own MECHANICS, right?"

"Mmmhmm."

"Alright! Now..."

The door on the box's face clacked shut, and he walked over with a handle-held case brimming with bolts, screws, wrenches, ratchets and jacks. A sizable amount of spare parts littered in there in organized piles tagged with post-its as well.

"-You're sure you're comfortable with this? Positive?"

He set the case down, leaned on his knuckles on the table, and raised a brow at her.

Foxy nodded slowly, and flicked her eye-patch upwards to beam at him.

"Phillip, I'm not dodging any bullets with this one... I'm... I'm NOT afraid... But I'm not totally secure with it. I want to look nice again... I want to feel nice again..."

She rubbed her paw in a stroking motion up the length of her right upper-arm, and blinked shyly at the floor.

"-I'm going to make myself deal with this, Phillip. Just do what you can... I'll tell you how certain parts work and what can be used..."

"Alright, Foxy. Like I said, I'll do it right. It might be a little slow at first, but I'll make you look good as new!" He chuckled, and opened one of the case's side-compartments.

"What do want to spiffy-up first?"

What DID she want to fix first?

Foxy pressed her teeth in her lower-chop, and looked down at herself judgingly, and with a scrutinizing glare.

Portions of her organic mesh and fur were totally missing on her rib and belly sections, her neck was exposed as the steel pipe-joint that it was internally, her right forearm was exposed greatly from a past scuffle with Chica, and her left still had teeth marks from Bonnie.

She was a mess, and these wounds were all evenly gruesome to let live on her.

So she thought of the first one that made her the most angry or upset.

"-C-Can you patch these up?" She padded her paw about her belly and sides.

Phillip narrowed his eyes, rubbed his chin, and bent closer to examine the tears in the fur and mesh beneath it.

She quivered at his close proximity, felt a circuit jolt inside her.

"What kind of material is your... Uh... Now see this is weird, because normally the things I'm fixing aren't ALIVE, haha..."

She snickered to his remark.

"-Uhm, so what is your... REAL-seeming, parts made of?"

"Well its actual fur, Phil... But this is organic mesh. You don't have a tool to fix that, it'll heal."

"It WILL?"

"I'm not entirely robotic, remember?" She giggled. "There is a circuit-net that interlaces beneath the mesh that makes my outer-appearance. If you can reconnect those circuits, the mesh will reform over time."

"So... Organic/Machine mix?"

"Yes... The machinery always daunted on me-"

"THAT'S AMAZING! YO!"

She gawked as Phil set to work with a quick nod, he bent lower and asked her to raise her right arm. In his hands he held a pair of pliers, and a small flashlight.

Again, she shook a bit when he shined the cone of light inside a gash on her ribs, he blinked, and she felt him move one of the separated circuit-heads that hung loosely there.

"Will these... HEAL, too?"

"If their touching, over time..."

"Well they look a little bit like aluminum or... Copper. I can wrap the ends together with the pliers. Will they heal?"

"That will work..."

"Great! I'll be sure to do this gently... I just need you to stay still, okay?"

"Okay."

Foxy waited anxiously as his movements became slow and deliberate with precision, she felt the pliers take hold on a circuit's severed girth, and then drag it lightly downward to press against its separated kin. There was tiny squeak of metal.

Then there was another, and another.

Suddenly, a strange sensation of cold rushing over her dull rib section became evident. Her jaw slackened, and her paw shot up to brush nearby fur.

"P-Phillip...?"

"What happened?" He asked with concern, leaning upwards towards her face and taking the pliers back.

"I... I can feel... I can FEEL where the wound was..."

"I reconnected all of the circuits, so, does that mean your senses return there-?"

"ALL of them?!"

"...Yes?"

"B-But, Phil! There are over a hundred lines of mesh-circuits on each one of my halves alone! How many-?"

"I dunno, I think I could see like fifteen on that gash."

"W-wow... Um... Okay... Okay, keep going please."

"Sure thing."

The past started to drift away from her embattled head as feeling of air, and the cool temperature of the garage flooded onto the mesh and fur surrounding the dead-gashes on her body as Phillip reconnected circuit after circuit.

An unheard amount of time flashed by, and Foxy just stayed still, and let the human work over the course of several minutes, and then, a half-hour had passed, and her legs were feeling numb from lack of movement...

Of course, she was so excited that she didn't care.

"Alright, I think I got all of them here. What next-?"

"DO THIS SIDE!" She squeaked, spiraling on the bench, and repeatedly poking her finger in the direction of her left flank.

"-PLEASE! THANK YOU!"

Phil found her excitement more incentive to keep going, the tools clinked and clacked, things were reattached, feelings of unrivalled exhileration began to flood Foxy's body on BOTH flanks.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Age was something that was either the love of your life, or your worst nemesis that harassed you until the day your age ended you.

For some people, it became harder to think, to move and interact, and for some, it stayed more or less the same as it had for the longest time in their lives. Of course, there were the exceptions of unique probabilities among the generalization...

Matthew liked to think, he didn't know for a fact, but he humored the thought with himself, that HE was one of those exceptions.

He had been a productive member of society, lived in the city, had a family, had friends and people that strived to help him and likewise in turn on his part. There had been this positivity that had swelled his very existence with pride.

It was a golden period, a great, unkempt flourishing of happiness.

So maybe that was why he sympathized with... Foxy, as she was named.

Truthfully, all those many years ago, Matthew had little different of a reaction than Phillip, the young little shitter, did when HE first encountered the creatures that called the old pizzeria a home. Matt had been the ripe age of thirty, EXACTLY, not in his thirties, not twenty nine or eight... Just thirty.

His experience started out like so many unfortunates that had met these beings before him.

They tried to kill him.

Matthew had lost his prior occupation many months ago, his best clientele, a series of competitive, yet unionized, estate brokers had been within the limo HIS business had owned. As fate would have it, the driver met with an accident.

And the papers flooded the eyes of all their readers under the mysterious circumstances of the accident.

He had told that security guard, Phillip, so much of his past, and this was the one thing he had not yet divulged, because it still burned him every day and night.

When his business tanked, he sold it, and used the money to purchase the old pizzeria and start over.

The rabbit aimed for him after a week, and Matthew suffered a series of medical problems from the shock he had suffered after barely escaping through a back entry. Then the rabbit AND the chicken.

Finally, he dug into the information about the building and discovered a chap named Jensk, a mechanic living in Chicago, who personally informed Matt of the situation, and offered to take a bus to the state to meet and converse.

Matthew was no wiseman, no matter how much he seemed so to the younger folk of the place... Jensk, was his true hero in this mess.

Jensk was a tall, muscular brute with the voice of one of those nervous, rookie-telemarketers you screamed at for soliciting over the phone on Sundays.

Jensk explained that these 'Animatronics' dated to the days of biplanes and steamships, and the two agreed to combine funds, minds, and resources to purging this demonic, supernatural threat that had traveled the world to a children's establishment.

As Matthew read documents, found anonymous sources and records with Jensk's help, they found that the bear, Freddy, the one this building was named for, was a 'Ringleader' of sorts, and at least the other two were subservient to him.

Whatever Freddy had been, or whatever his name was a few hundred years ago, was still unknown to both Matthew and Jensk by the time they officially saw the animatronic move for them, and for the subsequent encounters later.

Through all the records, the documents, the crime-scene photos, one name only branched out ever-so thinly amid tens of other possibilities, theories, and terms.

"Baphomet?"

"Aye, you found that too?"

"Yes, Jensk, its on this," Matthew held up a binder he had retrieved from a opened crime-file box that had gathered a thick layer of pungent dust.

Jensk stole away the folder he was sifting through in his box, and stepped across the thin, empty aisle to take the binder from his friend.

"I still haven't deciphered it." He read while speaking.

"No one has apparently..."

"I have found this name, tens of times throughout my research. You know what it is, right?"

"Uhmm... Yeah," Matt rolled his wrist. "Demon art, occult, the goat-head demogod thing, yes, Jensk."

"So then we need to figure out how that connects to the animatronics."

"Could they... Be demons?"

"If the vulpine was a demon, why is she helping us?"

"I didn't think of Foxy, your right..."

Keeping care to lower their voices was a common practice that they both had picked up over a great gathering of time. While too many, the two middle-aged men appeared to be mumbling and grumbling to each other, they would actually exchange boatloads of debate, and information.

Within the large hangar-like interior of a crime-file storage of the county law enforcement, it was needed to ward off suspicion to add to what they already were in question of.

They had lied to enter the facility, of course, it wasn't as if the state trooper at the desk was going to let some guys inside the file shelves to dig up dirt on 'Killer Animatronics' after all. Matthew had made the guise that the people involved in these specific files were distant relatives.

He wanted to learn the truth of their troubles for himself, for closure, he had explained.

Jensk flashed a I.D of his prior years in the BPD, another life before Chicago, and asked kindly for entry.

Here they were, in a place considered off-limits to most civilians in many states and counties, all because they had deceived, just like the monsters they were trying to learn of had done for decades.

That was a memory among hundreds with Jensk.

He was an honest man, and when the fight when stagnant, and Freddy's little trio murdered the last crew of a scrap plant on their final stunt to end him, Jensk had fallen into depression, nearly killed himself in a drunk-driving incident as a result.

Still with a cast on his arm, he departed back to Chicago without another word, and Matthew was alone again, against the monsters of his old pizzeria that he barely kept in running shape. He enlisted local, brief help, and for the few that new of the animatronics, they were dispatched in a variety of ways by the evils they sought to stop.

Matthew had been given hope with this new guard because he had enlisted the aid of other animatronics, ones that had locked themselves away for years to escape the terror.

So during the weekend, old Matt took the deepest of breaths, and spent several hours burning his eyes on the computer screen to find a needed address. Then he opened a phone book, grabbed a pen and notepad, and scribbled.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15.

Light to Dark.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"Looks like the scene is getting really dismal, maybe if we put flashlights on the lens rims! That'll brighten the bleak overlook!"_**

**_-Writ 44 of Surveillance. _**

As quickly as the view of an unknown void had been experienced, sought and traversed, it was locked away again beneath the veil of obscure glass and moldy plaster. All of it being sucked down into a whirlpool of broiling shadow that was his broken memory.

If the trip hadn't been exhilarated with two kills, and the relief of his addiction to violence after so long, he would have been mourning reemerging into the front door of the pizzeria.

But instead, Bonnie examined his bloody fur, noting how the affect of the evil that enwrapped him was allowing the life fluid to vanish in his purple hide, and was erasing any further evidence of his travels. He snorted in amusement.

"Ah! There we go... A quick break from the dismal resort of self-degradation! TOLD you it was worth my bidding, B'!"

Bonnie clenched bore teeth, and stepped into the frame without a word when the bear's arm flew out and slapped the glass door shut behind him, draped over his shoulders with a metallic thud.

Freddy looked sated, at the least, he grinned wholly, shook the rabbit with a rough bob of his forearm.

"So where's the target, buddy?"

"Out of our reach..."

"This is news under the impression you were successful?"

"What do you think?"

"Don't know. Why not tell me? I'm not YOU, B'."

"She's in a house, the guard's house. That shrill little-shit is with them... I don't know anything but that."

The bear leaned back, relinquished the grip on Bonnie's back, and folded his arms across his furred breast in consideration. His glowing eyes narrowed to the ceiling, he hummed.

To the display before him, the hare just snorted, and began to shoulder past him in some vain effort of showing resistance, and stomped back towards the dining area where the stage was.

"Oh, B'?"

"WHAT?"

"-You didn't happen to... You know... ENACT your bloodrage while you were out, did you?"

If it weren't for the darkness of the joint, Freddy's expression would have been more enlightened for his coworker to take heed of. For if detail were present, the ringleader could've been described with words such as 'Smug'.

But instead, Bonnie just raised his wrists into the light, barely clinging to the crimson that still remained on them, and vanished towards the back of the building with a blur of movement when the bear grinned toothily and nodded.

"Girl has no clue I'm going to end this after so long. No clue! Delicious really, don't you think?"

Whether it was the actual shadow of the nighttime structure that let him find a partner to discuss his success with, or the brief shuffle of movement from Chica's immobile hunch in the back of the hallway, no one, lest the walls themselves, could tell.

It was immaterial though, because old Fredd' cackled like a placated hyena either way.

-0-0-0-0-0-

You would think that having someone stick a wrench and pliers inside you would be uncomfortable and chafing, that'd it would be quite distressing, maybe, if you were a robot, insulting, to say the least. When people prodded you with stuff, you tended to not like it, plain and simple.

But the thing was, Foxy DID like this, she loved every second of it. Because the longer he worked on her, the nicer she became, if only baby-steps now, she viewed these repairs as precursors to something unimaginably amazing.

She daydreamed heavily, oblivious to the occasional jerk that tugged lightly at her as Phillip Linn finished tying together the last of the mesh-circuits on her lower hip, a small plumage of them exposed via what appeared to be a tearing gap in the fur there.

Many of the 'Wounds' if you will, that he had now repaired, had earned a cringe or stone faced glare from him as they progressively got worse the more Foxy opened up to him.

Diligently, he fixed everything she pointed out on her body, her forearm was nice and patched up behind that hook of hers, a series of teeth marks being dusted-out, the circuits in the bigger holes were tied, and the fur was trimmed where it matted in the damage.

Throughout the entire operation, Foxy was beaming, and she bounced a little in the seat much akin to Mangle whenever someone mentioned a pastry that was about to be baked.

He eyed up at her and finished snipping off a wad of tangled, dirty fur by her upper thigh with a pair of cutters.

"You liking this treatment at the Linn-Spa? Madam?" He joked with a chuckle.

"YES. Yes I'm liking this treatment. D-Did you get everything? Let me see!"

Phil stepped back and held up a small mirror by the animatronic's flank, her jaw tightened and her eyes widened in awe to the fixes that would soon vanish amid her organic mesh reforming in a few days.

With all the damage done to her at the pizzeria, the mesh couldn't compensate with her separated and torn mechanics, but now these were reconnected, her mesh would get to work. She would look nice again.

Foxy hummed highly in approval and let her palm glide over the patched-up hide, Phil grinned and placed the mirror back on the table.

"Did I do good?"

Her vision darted to the goofy human as he smiled sheepishly and wiped his forehead with a rag he'd retrieved from a nearby shelf.

Foxy's mouth moved, stalled, and she clenched her fist in mid-air in front of herself.

Phillip raised a brow, and went to question exactly HOW emotional she was over the whole thing, but got his answer when she stood from the bench and threw her arms over his shoulders.

Though he tensed, his arms curled under his chest as Foxy's belly pressed into him, her arms spiraled to snake about his back, and the animatronic's head delved into his hair atop his head, she made a sort of sniffling sound and squeezed a small 'Ack!' sound from him.

A few days ago, he would have shit himself.

But today... The hell with it, she wasn't as squeamish for him to touch today. He hadn't hugged someone in a good while either, surely not as long as HER, but a good while.

Phillip was silent, he returned the gesture a bit awkwardly, and freed his forearms to pat her furred back with light thuds.

For all the silence that resonated besides her quivering breath, he managed to hear her mutter into his scalp.

"Thank you." His world grew tighter under her more stressed grip. "THANK YOU."

"Y-Your welcome-! F-Fox'! Its-ACK-All good-! All good... ACK."

His palms patted a few more times before waving dramatically.

"-CAN'T BREATHE."

"S-Sorry, Phil..."

She didn't release him, but she leaned her upper body back to stare at him as he sucked in a bout of air, and coughed a little before shaking his head to recover.

"Woo! Some grip, girl." He snickered.

Foxy had an ear to ear grin that just screamed trips to inner-happy places for her as she doted on him. Her eyes were droopy, there was a content aura over her expression, she placed her hook sideways behind him to avoid the tip of the blade, her paw tugged by his back.

Still keeping their pelvis's pressed, Foxy hummed to him.

"Nobody has ever made me happy, Phillip." She purred. "You're lucky I don't have tear ducts..."

"Well, Foxy I'm glad I could help."

"I'm glad YOU are the one helping... Phillip, there are just..."

Her foot drew circular paths in the dusty garage floor below her, and she leaned her head closer to dwell on his collar briefly.

She couldn't formulate what to say at first, but Phillip waited patiently.

"-There are just..." A huff. "-So many really strong words that I could use... A week of seeing you or not. I-I'm just... REALLY happy with you..."

Phillip's eyes became heavy, so much that when Foxy angled down lower, he felt his head nudge just as they shut in a tight clench. He forced himself to rid his face of the strained twist, and Foxy kept their foreheads together.

She relished the waves of cool air that brushed over her neck and shoulders from him, her lithe body tingled with the new enhanced sections of feeling that had been numb for nearly twenty years.

"I know you aren't... Willing... To take this, whatever THIS is, any farther. But you've touched me, Phillip. I don't know how much more of this mess I can go through if you aren't with me..."

"F-Foxy, we're gonna fix you fully, we're gonna stop the sickos on the stage, and..." He faltered, sighed heavily to become accustomed.

THIS, after all, was the most contact with her he'd ever had at once.

"-And I'm not sure what it will look like, but I'm gonna find a way to make SOMETHING work with this."

Foxy noted his light, near unnoticeable squirming, and exhaled in disappointment.

"Should I let go?"

"Only when you're ready, Fox'."

"But its YOU I'm-"

"And I'M saying do so for as long as you want. If I'm to figure something out, I need to get used to it, and get over myself."

She looked down between them, fidgeted behind his neck, and nodded slowly, not moving from her stance whilst her legs flexed against him.

"W-Well... I-If I'm here anyway..."

"Yes, Fox'?"

"Phillip... Do you think I'm... U-Ugly?"

"Of course not! Why would you ask that?"

"Because I know I'm not human... I want to know what else... Puts you off."

"Foxy nothing puts anything off on me about you... But because I live in a world where the only options for a relationship are the normal human women of Earth and all, or something people frown down upon called beastality," He cringed a tad at the last part.

"-Physically I feel... Awkward. To many humans, you are a walking, talking animal. I know better, but... I dunno how else to explain it."

"I... Understand, and I don't. Not that I need more explaining..."

"I get it."

"-And I keep trying to rush onto you, or get you to feel an emotion you haven't gotten with me yet... B-Because I'm so lonely. I'm lonely and I want to experience so much with you."

The garage was a mess for him at this point, because there were all of these factors within his mind that weren't allowing him to put aside taboo and culture-coding of the average human in the world.

There was this being, a female, a woman by some standards, she was sentient, could talk, think and formulate opinions, could experience emotions, had cares and wants... She just looked like a walking fox with mechanical parts and frigging hook for a right hand.

The physical traits, the thinking that if he said 'Screw it!' and agreed to whatever kind of relationship this animatronic creature wanted to engage in with him, he would be repulsed, wrongfully and unintentionally so, at whatever bodily connections or parts were on her that could be used for a relationship of said status.

Embarrassingly, she had confirmed for him of a reproductive or similar section between her thighs, but what about under the medical wrap on her torso? What if she had a similar network to a human woman down there?

It was a buzzing mess of questions and fears that made him so depressed to even consider trying to sort out.

So it daunted him. Continuously.

Phillip just sighed again, it was all he could do, he stroked the animatronic's forearms with his own as she reclined her head from him, and took a step back.

Warmth receded from the contact, and Foxy shivered at the quick return of the cool garage air, she embraced herself with crossed arms self-protectively, and her chin compressed to her clavicle.

"-I'm sorry I came onto you like that..."

"N-No, its okay Fox'! I don't mind that. Its just the kind of contact LAST time..."

"Okay."

"So, why don't we take a break today... Uhm..." Phillip's head spiraled as he recalled the original purpose for the garage visit and time, he stared at the organized tools that still had to be put away.

Scratching his chin briefly, he looked at Foxy and gestured for the door to the house.

"-C-Can you check on Mangle for me? I'm afraid she might be using my T.V. chair as a bonfire to roast the rest of my marshmellows, or something..."

"Right... I'll... I'll do that."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Hello?"

"_Mr. Linn! Its Matt, how's your weekend going?_"

"Its alright, boss. What happened?"

"_Phillip?_"

"C'mon boss, a call just for kicks from you to ME?"

"_... I apologize if that makes this sound inconsiderate on my end, my boy._"

"I understand, Matt... Is this something about our robo-friends?"

"_Indeed. We need to stop beating around the bush, Phillip. I'm setting a plan in motion, and I'm going to fill you in on it._"

"How so?"

"_Are you free tomorrow?_"

"..."

"_Mr. Linn, please..._"

"... Uhm... Yep. Yep I'm free..."

"_My address is 91 on Pineview Avenue. You know the street?_"

"Uh-huh."

"_Mr. Linn I need you to trust me. There's a few things you need to know. Stop by in the afternoon when you're ready, any time, any hour at the sun's highest, boy. Can you do that for me? Please?_"

"Boss, don't beg me, I'm showing up because I want these monsters gone too. Don't worry."

"_I'll see you then, my friend._"

"Yeah... See you."

The receiver clacked as he set the phone back into its wall-mounted holder in the kitchen. His palm still hugging its spine, his hand clenched, fingers drummed and he bit his lower lip.

Growling, the possibilities for an unknown, unseen horror-show or accident replayed in a myriad of alternating scenes within his mind, his conscience BEGGED him to deny his boss this visit. Yet, the old man was the key to stopping whatever the freaks back at the pizzeria were...

As much as Phillip hated to admit it, Matthew was right, they had been dawdling this whole week trying to get the guard situated while Freddy and his two pawns were most likely evaluating a plan of some sorts, themselves.

Getting away from the building was a good start, Foxy and Mangle couldn't help the two of them if they were getting torn to bits by a ganged-up effort from the three on that stage... It also wouldn't be easy for Phil himself if something happened to his new buddies...

Mangle may have been agitating at times, but she was a good friend this past week, a little destructive of property, sure, yet she was willing to do whatever was needed to help her companions, she didn't need to explain that for him to know.

And Foxy... Well, when someone tells you they long for you, they probably are on your side. You know, probably. Definitely. He was certain...

Who the frag was he kidding?

Foxy was experiencing the precursors of emotional stuff that bound people for lifetimes, either that or she was one HELL of an actor. Which he knew wasn't the case.

She may not have been bothered by the whole interspecies aspect of what she wanted, but as had been beaten to death for the last few days, HE was bothered.

Still clenching the hung up phone, poor Phil hissed through his teeth and broke away towards the T.V. room.

He'd keep his demons to himself. For now.

"Philly? What's a Man Churro?"

From the carpet of the floor, the Mangle jabbed her head up to blink at him curiously.

His brow arched as he sat on the sofa opposite where Foxy sat towards the back wall.

"A Man... Churro?"

"Yeah! What a Man Churro, Philly?"

"Well... A man is a... A MAN." He patted his chest with a nervous chuckle. "-And a Churro is a cinnamon treat they make at food-stands like in theme-parks or cafeterias..."

"So... It a man made of cinnie?"

The animatronic looked utterly stumped from her curl on the floor, and Phil was about to just laugh at her antics, when he noticed a spherical object of white obscured under some of her leftwards pipe-limbs.

"What is that, Mangle?"

"Me found it."

"Alright, what IS it?"

"Me find Man Churro here!"

"Is that the globe from my bedroom nightstand?"

"OOooooo! Me find Chinny Ha!"

"Gimme that!"

Standing up, he snatched the globe from her prodding hands and feet, and trotted back to sit on the sofa, he turned the plastic globe in his hands to find whatever Mangle was looking at.

"Where did you find anything with Churros you weirdy?"

He shifted whilst the Mangle slung herself over his back and shoulder, craned her head around his neck, and pointed to a patch of land in Asia.

"There's the cinnie peoples!"

He squinted, read around, and angled his lipline in knowing.

"Mangle,"

"Yes, Philly?"

"That's Manchuria."

"... Me no get it."

"Oh lord. And what did you say the other was? Chin-something-?"

"-CHINNY HA! YAY!"

"That's China."

"What about Brazza Lil?!"

"... Brazil."

"Russshea?"

"Russia."

"Germy Man?"

"Germany."

"Great Bitty-Kins?"

"GREAT BRITAIN."

"Unit Estates?"

"ITS THE UNITED STATES!"

When Phil burst out laughing, Mangle just gawked at him funny, poked the globe he clenched tightly, and ignored as she bounced with his wracks of humorous chuckles.

Her expression scrunched up.

"Me think it broken!"

"Holy frag, you are funny sometimes, Mangle, I'll give you that."

While this unfolded, Foxy watched the situation with a large smile, leaned forwards on the sofa, and pointed to the Pacific Ocean portion of the globe.

"Hey Mangle?"

"Yes, Foxxxxyyy?"

"Look there, they named a whole country after Phillip."

Mangle sounded like she was going to pass out when she gasped, snatched the globe towards her face, and eyed the Philippines with great vigor.

"YOU FAMOUS PHILLY!"

"Pfft. I wish."

"Can you be Emperor Philly-Kins?!"

"Why not."

The conversation of midday debauchery would've continued, and it might have gotten rid of the mental debates that had been troubling two of the particular members of that comedic mess. However, it wasn't meant to be, for that would mean erasing the ever-present fact that they battling something evil.

The window outside the T.V. room thudded, loudly, and brash.

Foxy's grin was wiped away, and she leapt to face the glass with a narrowing of her exposed un-patched eye.

Phillip jumped to his feet as well, Mangle still wrapped over his shoulders and peeking above his hairline to the shade-covered glass.

For a moment, there was no sound, a few glances were exchanged, and Foxy moved towards the center of the room with backwards, slowly padded steps. Phil shouldered out of her way when she hurried past to the front door.

"W-Wait! Fox'! The sun!"

She stopped dead when he muttered this, paw clenched over the door knob.

It squeaked as she flexed her digits.

"Phillip you are NOT going out there alone." She snapped without question.

"You're right. Mangle's coming with me. The sun doesn't bother her."

"Me feel fine in nasty light... It just not nice is all, Foxxxyyyy..." She muttered on cue, muffled in Phillip's hair.

Foxy blinked, formed a shake on the knob, and released it in a quick, agonized jerk.

Phillip had just retaken hold of it and turned when her paw yanked onto his right shoulder.

"If one of them is out there. I'm coming out, and I'm KILLING them. DON'T. TRY. TO STOP ME."

All the poor guard could do was wait for her to relinquish her grip, he breathed lastly, and flung the door open with the Mangle chattering unappreciatively at the sudden burst of daylight.

The lawn was quiet save the hissing of the trees surrounding the property being rustled by an afternoon breeze. A cricket chirped in low mutters nearby, the sound of a car leaving a driveway echoed from a few streets away.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. No monsters or blood or shadow. Nothing.

He squinted, walked across the porch in low, intentionally dulled footfalls, and padded onto the lawn.

Mangle cast her eyes about as he did, a foot draped by his face again, and he did nothing to push it away amid focusing on the sides of the house.

Convinced the front yard was not the source, he cautiously rounded towards the garage, past the doors and the Ford still parked in the driveway, towards the small wooden gate that led to the backyard, and connected to the fence walling off the woods.

Still in his socks, he made no clacks of impact on the cement of the driveway, reached the gate, and cringed when it squeaked upon contact.

Again, the wind was all that made comments here, so when he unlatched the aluminum hook, and swung the thing open, it creaked a little with every metal shift. The cobbled walkway was revealed, and it bled into a thick, healthy lawn that traveled around the base of three oak trees in the center of the backyard.

The cobble circled his house to the patio, which was where the sound came from by the T.V. window.

"You'll help me fight whatever is back there, right Mangle?"

"Me not fight, Philly..." She said lowly. "-Me find bad-peoplz and kick cans!"

"That's all I needed to hear." He smiled.

Phillip took a breath, gulped, and began a light jog down the cobbles, only angling lower, slowing down, when he neared the corner of the house. He peaked around the gutter-drain that drew down the panels here, and saw his stone patio, absent of the chairs he kept out in the summer.

Other than that, the backyard was completely devoid of movement.

Phillip squinted and stepped from the cover.

"What the hell..." He muttered. "-I'm telling you right now that whatever the noise was WASN'T caused by a squirrel or something..."

"What about weasel?"

"I doubt it..." He snickered, folding his arms and staring about the empty space around the thrice trees several feet ahead of the patio.

The yard was devoid of anything moving or presentable as hostile. It looked all clear.

But then he noticed that it was ALSO devoid of sound. The insects in the area had gone quiet. Entirely quiet.

It was unnatural.

Even the breeze that rustled the trees was gone.

He looked at the sky, went to ask what the frag was with that, and heard a tiny, metallic droning sound, something alien, completely unheard of in the natural world.

The first thought in his nerdy head was the result of someone combining a Predator from Aliens vs. Predator with a Terminator robot and adding a fuzzy-microphone for a throat. Oddly.

It would've been funny, or, at least cool in better circumstances.

The Mangle yipped, he gasped when there were two points of squeezing force on his right hip. Then the world rushed, and something grabbed him.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	16. Chapter 16

**_Hey dudes and dudettes, so this is a big scene for one chapter, if you aren't into crazy fight-scenes, than you might wanna skip to the end here, because most of this chapter is... Well, a fight scene. :P _**

**_Lolzers._**

**_Hey, random question for all of you, anyone still play Pikmin 2? For the life of me I cannot find anyone at class who still plays Pikmin 2! What the frosted muffins is that all about, right? _**

**_It just came up, I've been playing the thing since I was a child and after all that time I have 63,000 little buggers and nothing to do with them._**

**_Well, enough videogame chat, hope anyone who is reading thinks its still kewl. Stay safe peeps!_**

**_-Don_**

Chapter 16.

Cross Unto the Borders.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"When the sun goes down, intruders best beware, for the security guards are watching. Go on, attempt to break in, we dare ye' o-vile scum!"_**

**_-Writ 46 of Surveillance. (CELTIC ROOTS OF CAM-CORDERS EDITION.) _**

When he had been a little boy, maybe around the age of nine, or at the highest, eleven, he had almost fallen in a dug-out pit in the rear yard of his family's home. It was rectangular, shovels and slabs of interior tile-lining lay in stacks around and in the cut.

This was the beginnings of the new pool his father had spent a fortune on to get his wife and child something to relax in during the summer. The workers had arrived, planned and marked out the area, and started to excavate.

He had watched the burly workers with keen interest for a few days, he noted how the biggest of them didn't even break a sweat doing things that made him keel over with a collapsed lung upon moments of enacting.

It was fascinating to his developing mind, the sight of people ten times stronger than he.

The contractors thought it was cute, but when it came to the stakes of just doing something CUTE, to something utterly DUMB, there was no sympathy for the subject in peril, even if they were a child.

When the boy had kneeled to look into the dark, dusty square of indented earth, he had thought nothing of the equipment laying on the bottom of the very edge he chanced, and ironically, this was the one area in the crevice that had a shovel with its scoop sticking upwards.

Whoever left it on such a precarious upside-down lean to the root-laden dirt obviously couldn't have known the kid would find the sharp angle neat to test fate with. But the boy's father had some inkling.

There was a crack of dirt, and his knees slid through the soil, the pit came closer to the panicking eyes and a feeling of falling started to take hold. His arms flailed, he squeaked in sudden fear. Then, right as he heard a stone clang off that menacing, skywards jabbing shovel blade, a large, fuzzy arm snatched out, relieved him of the wind in his chest, and tugged him away into the air.

The toddler shivered, tugged at the hairy arm holding him, and was silent whilst the arm's holder released a large held-in breath, and spiraled the boy around to look at him.

Beneath a mustache and beard that made him look like an anti-version of Santa Claus, his father hid a distinguished, ripe frown that matched with his angry eyes that bugged when he got mad.

"Mr. Linn!" He growled, a term he used only when his son did the worst. "-You are LUCKY, I was there. What is wrong with you? What if you got hurt? How would that make daddy feel? GOOD? I think not!"

He just blabbered out an apology of some measure and cried, its what all little kids did when the hammer from the parental fortress fell.

His father sighed and hugged his son briefly.

"Ahg... Its fine, Phillip. Phillip look, its fine. Sssh," That great beard jostled as his father smiled. "-Just don't do it again. Don't go near the pool pit. Understand? I may not be there to catch you if you don't listen."

To make his point, his old man pointed to the swingset towards the rear left of the house's patio doors.

"Remember when you hit your head on the swing-chain? HURT, right?"

Phillip stopped crying, went wide eyed, and shook his head vigorously to affirm so.

"Well that," His father turned the finger to the digging. "THAT, will hurt ten times worse. Listen to your dad for me, will ya kid?"

"O-Okay, dad."

"Alright, awesome! Now come on, why don't I tell you that story where me and my old friend nailed the neighbor's door with dog cr-I MEAN, uh..." Phil grew excited, the previous terror forgotten amid the rapid gears of a baby's mind.

His father bounced his arm as he reconsidered his words.

"-The one when I was your age, and me and my friend hit the neighbors door with puppy poop."

"I love that one, dad!"

"Oh believe me, kid, I LOVE that one too haha!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

So to get the point across, first there was a dug-out poorly warded-off pit that almost ate him, then there was that time he had disturbed a wasp's nest near his uncle's house gutter...

Then there was now. Of course.

The moral of the story was, Phil had some bad luck with backyards apparently, it seemed that they were just a breeding ground for the possibility to get killed. And now that he had had such a flashback, it was apparent that the dreaded rear properties of homes were trying to snuff him out a THIRD time...

Whatever it was that backyards had against him, it must have been aggravated recently, because this was a world of pain. Not as bad as that shovel would have been, or the wasp stings... But by God this wasn't comfy either.

The aggressor was powerful, it had the grip of a vice applying pressure to steel, and it was blatantly obvious that whatever was attacking him WASN'T human.

The prior moments were all a blur really, Phillip felt something jerk the Mangle from her perch, and that was literal, because she had yipped like a surprised fish being taken out of a bowl by the house's cat.

Whatever had grabbed her by a wad of her pipe-limbs had thrown her, and she vanished into one of the shrubs that lined the western, rickety wood fence of the yard with a puff of disturbed leaves.

Phillip cursed with every word he'd ever been taught in the span of ten seconds, which, even to him, was some accomplishment.

His gut compressed, and a wheeze of discharged air blew from his puckered lips.

The assailant wrapped two claws over his hip and middle-waist, lifted him with no effort, and tossed him into the side of his home.

"OooOOHH- SHIIIIITTT-!"

Phillip's outcry leveled as he was lifted, aimed, and chucked through the air, he was cut short with a **_PUGGHH _**akin bark of disturbed paneling. Dust and crumbled dirt kicked up in a cloud around a set of panels that shifted in their alignment when his back compressed to them.

He rolled down from where he ate the wall, and collapsed in a heap on the stone base of his patio with a grunt of pain.

His head swam, and whatever was kicking his ass made that droning sound again before its wicked resilient palms clenched over not his body, but his shoulders, and catapulted him similarly to a stupid stunt-man in a cannon at the circus.

Phillip screamed like a little girl being dropped from a stroller, and tumbled into the grass with a series of 'Oof!'s.

For a moment of seeing nothing but dulled greenery, Phil heard the wind kick briefly above his head, and rose from his sprawl in the yard to spit out a wad of grass that had accumulated in his hanging jaw. He spit and sputtered, drew his hands across his lips, then spiraled to see exactly WHAT was trying to get him this time...

Honestly, frighteningly, he expected Bonnie, Chica, maybe Freddy, ONE of the freakshows at least...

Not one of their minions.

And hell, they HAD minions? Or was this something he had missed in the demon-hunter memo that fateful applicative day he had submitted for the guard job?

Stepping back on wobbly legs, the shock was still making him shake when a thin, wiry figure mechanically, yet animatedly at the same time, took clomping steps off the patio, and trekked onto the grass in his direction.

Two plastic eyes with big black pupils jabbed at him silently, a mechanical jaw displaying cartoony molar-looking teeth clacked in tiny bounces as it walked on piston-driven legs made of sectioned gears, wire-crossed rods of protective covering, and metal bars holding internal skeletal meshes.

Its body sported ten jagged aluminum ribs that curled over a battery pack, messes of wires, and a series of pipes that cris-crossed over a circuit-gridded gear-distributed spinal column made of plastic-like mesh.

Its shoulders were pads of metal interlaced with cables that supported arms made the same as its more powerful lower limbs.

Robotic whines from moving equipment bleeped as it walked, its mouth creased ever so slightly, and that insanity-ridden drone that had bracketed his hearing prior blared out.

"Wh-What the crap man?!" Phil muttered dramatically. "-How many of you freaks ARE THERE?!"

The endoskeleton droned again and swung with a balled fist of metal-fingers and a circuited palm.

Phillip yelped and threw himself backwards with quick steps, the fist made the air it passed through whistle, it arced to return to a readied stance by the thing's hip.

He glanced to the right, saw the bush that Mangle had been tossed into was parting, and the dizzied animatronic was shaking her head rapidly with a comedic jumbling of clinking bolts within.

"Me need to lay off marshymellows..."

"MANGLE!"

"Hiiiiiii Phiiillly!" She waved without any regard for the thing between them. He gawked for a second and jabbed a finger at it whilst it trotted in his direction.

"-A LITTLE HELP?! You know?! Would be-!"

Phillip cut himself off and swung over his own weight, rolling across the grass when his back touched on of the oak trees. The endoskeleton swung with its fist again, missing the tumbling human by a long shot. There was a crack of disturbed tree-bark, and the fist passed through the sturdy wood, leaving a gash that looked like a car bumper had chipped the plant's flank.

Another drone from the annoyed monster.

"-WOULD BE NICE!"

"Get away from Philly, dirt-bag bolt-head!"

The human hissed when the thing went to grab him again and left a strained tug of pain on his arm when he slipped through its fingers, barely, but he still raised a brow to the choice of words by his companion.

The endoskeleton made a shrieking sound of static-disruption when a flailing mess of metal pipes clambered over its shoulders and head. Steel thuds and bangs blared out when balled fists on the ends of the Mangle's normally docile tentacles, began to jab inwards in a rapid succession of punches.

Mangle hissed angrily, her jaws came down and clenched over the mechanized's horror's head, there was a electrical discharge, something snapped, and she tossed her head backwards with one its dislodged eyes going airborne behind her.

It fell to a single knee, more droning echoing from its teeth, Phillip took the opportunity to scramble towards the patio.

The sounds of the mechanical smack-down grew dim for a second when he reached the side of the house, pumped his fist against the wall there to alert Foxy, and rummaged into an old aluminum storage shed he kept and at one point, had meant to tear down.

The shed was unlocked, he'd been out here a day ago to find spare nails for the mailbox, but chastising himself for his lack of security would be an issue later.

He flung the doors open with a screech of old metal, and tumbled inside to dig into an old plastic storage box.

Inside, he tossed a leaf-blower and part of a lawn-mower handle out of his way, snatched up a rusty, nearly ten-year-aged crowbar, and tested its weight. He said a quick prayer, and ran outside with the tool in his hands.

Again, the flailing mess of mechanical mayhem came to view, and the Mangle had just finished berating the harried endoskeleton on how it was a 'Low-lived kitten-hating mommyless piece of goat poop' or something along those lines, before it again grabbed her.

Its head jerked with another punch, palms snatched over its shoulders a few times, held onto one of the larger pipes Mangle sported by her ribcage-half, and overhand threw her.

She squeaked in surprise, flew like a flailing truck-wheel towards one of the oak trees.

The endoskeleton immediately turned to face the human as he jogged over with the crowbar.

With prehensile precision, the Mangle was able to brush off any wouldbe negative expectations of simply burying her face in the bark and ending her fight right then and there. For indeed, she did something much more skilled than just that disaster.

A series of her tentacle protrusions flung out before her, wrapped around the center pylon of the tree, and pushed backwards for her to straighten in midair, she cushioned herself into a still hover from the plant, a few feet-capped pipes pressed to the bark she faced, hands hugging the back.

She sniffed the bark, blinked, and angled downwards to give off a hissing sneeze.

She shook her head, made sure to give off a quick 'Ooo!' before lashing her tongue out and slurping a caterpillar into her mouth that crawled on a adjacent twig, then turned around to glare as the freak as it neared her buddy.

Phillip kept his ground, the endoskeleton droned, kept its fists higher, then swung when it gathered a few steps away from him.

He held the crowbar up and immediately regretted it.

**_CLANG!_**

Its fist connected to the flat of the bar, dented the solid, rusty metal, and shot the tool backwards to roughly bounce off of his shoulder.

He winced and reeled away, clenching his most-likely bruised joint briefly, before re-steadying the bar.

"I don't need my bud's for this you bastard..." He muttered, sidestepping and waiting for the wounded monster to come again.

Sparks of energy flickered by the fried wire that draped over its nose-section that once supported its left eye, the teeth made a clicking sound as they clenched, its balled fist arced once more.

Phillip continued playing the game of retreat, only this time, he waited for the fist and forearm to finish the swing, and in the few seconds it took the endoskeleton to ready its other arm, he struck. The crowbar came down with a grunt of his effort, connected with the thing's right elbow-joint, and knocked the entire limb down to the ground.

The skeleton screeched, leant onto the impacted arm to compress into the grass. Whatever demonic intelligence that was possessing the thing probably didn't expect ole' Phil to get balls at that instant.

Phillip's sock-covered foot stomped onto the endoskeleton's wrist, held, and the crowbar repeatedly was drawn back and flung forwards, sparks and whitened-blotches disturbed the air when the curved end of the head hit the monster's shoulderpad over and over again.

Phillip grunted and barked with each swing, the clangs got louder and more flimsy-tinged.

It was all cut off when the other hand grabbed his ankle, tugged, and forced his back into the ground of his lawn, the crowbar flung from his vision, thudded somewhere nearby.

"God-DAMN IT!"

His frustration seemed to amuse it when it heaved its damaged arm over, knelt on both legs, and came in a downwards arc of its still functioning fist.

The security guard turned-paratrooper cried out and flopped over the ground, the fist made a bevel in the dirt he vacated, and was finally silenced when the Mangle returned ever-so highly once more.

"Stupid friend-hurter!"

A final scream of mechanical static, and Phillip watched as Mangle flung outwards with her limbs still attached to the tree, used the momentum to drag the reeling endoskeleton with her across the lawn. She huffed in effort, her pipes stretched all the way from the bark snapped back, she landed in the stead of the now sling-shot monster.

Curling on the grass, she observed when the creation of robot-hell blared one last time in its flight, then its head flattened to a perfect between-shoulderblade smash into the tree's midsection.

There was crunch of metal, plastic and wire all at once, the crackle of electricity, the endoskeleton's torso indented in a V from its plant-based aerial buffer, and tumbled in a sparking heap onto the lawn.

Soot crawled up from its collapsed clavicle and skewered head and neck, the leg whined a last twitch.

And then the miraculous aftermath of silence occurred.

A breeze rustled the trees again, a cricket chirped. Phillip watched the end without comment from his sprawl on the grass.

It was over.

He wheezed in relief, and fell backwards to stare at the gray sky.

"Holy shit..." He grumbled.

"Yay! We won!"

He chuckled in all knowing as Mangle slithered over to him.

"What we win, Philly?"

"We win not being dead, Mangle. Thanks for the help."

"Me can't let baddies get you, Emperor Philly-Kins."

"Yeah... That would suck wouldn't it-?"

**_VVVVVVRRRRGGGGHHHHH_**

The sky grew blotted beneath a sheen-hued shadow of skeletal thinness, two plastic eyes glowered down to them, a metal heel raised over Mangle's suddenly flailing limbs.

"OH COME ON!" Phillip cursed.

The air whistled, a swipe of russet-colored motion, the new endoskeleton's head rolled into the air away from their lay, sparks and soot belched in a tiny pillar from its ragged shoulders, a paw grabbed the body and rolled it onto the ground not far from its tree-smacked friend.

"P-Phhiiillliiippp?"

The human was on his feet when Foxy stumbled over to look down at him with concern, her eyes were heavy, she leant on her right leg greatly.

"A-Are yooouuu... Allrigght?"

"Alright! Everyone inside the house, NOW DAMN IT! Move! MOVE!"

Phillip Linn jolted to a stand, bent down for the Mangle to hug over his shoulders, and grabbed Foxy's waist to begin hauling her from the front door she came from.

All the while, his eyes kept a healthy stare to the two heaps of ragged electronics that sparked silently by the center oak tree of the three. Hobbled by aiding his friend, they clambered down the cobbled walk, passed through the gate, allowing Phillip to narrow his eyes to the distant scrap.

He shuddered and slammed the gate shut.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"...Yes, yes I'm coming... Hello?"

"_Afternoon, sir. This is the Sheriff's Office, deputy Michell speaking, is that you Matthew?_"

"Deputy Michell? Is that you? You sound so much more gruff! How are you? What can I do for the department today?"

"_I'm fine, Matt. Yourself?_"

"Seen better, my lad, cannot complain though."

"_Aye, all good. Listen, Matt I actually hate having to rush our conversation, we haven't talked in a while I understand. But I have to ask you in light of recent news._"

"Recent news?"

"_There was a murder a night ago, the old Riley's Gas Station? You know?_"

"Yes I get a full tank there every week! What happened?"

"_One of the cashiers was killed behind the building. The crime lab has ruled it foul play, and I'm not at liberty to discuss details on the causes and finds here, as you can understand._"

"Of course, Michell. What do you need to know? A night ago you say?"

"_Yeah, I wanted to reach out to you off the books before the detectives at homicide show up all quick and such. Were you out that night? I'm sorry if this sounds like I'm accusing..._"

"No no! Its fine, regulations and all that... Um, no. No I wasn't out. I was home all night, the pizzeria is closed on Saturdays and Sundays, and my errands were today."

"_Alright, Matthew, I'll put the word in after the detectives show up. I don't know when that'll be, but don't tell them the sheriff rang you up on it, I put my neck out enough with this stuff, even stuff out of the blue._"

"Agreed, Michell. Thanks for the warning... I know you can't divulge details, but... HOW did this man die?"

"_...Mmmm..._"

"Alright I won't prod-"

"_He was gutted. That's all I can say._"

"...Right. I'll... I'll expect the detectives soon then?"

"_Might be a few hours, usual questions for any citizens in the neighborhood sort of thing._"

"Thank you, Michell."

"_Take care, Matt._"

"Thank you..."

The phone clacked into the receiver. Matthew sighed. He stepped away from the room, and entered his bedroom quietly, and with heavy footfalls.

Reaching his nightstand, he hesitated by the picture of his long gone family, snorted, pulled open the top drawer and took out a wooden crucifix, before clenching it to his breast and sitting on the bed's edge.

He ran his fingers across it.

"God forgive my brash inability to stop this..."

Then he prayed.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17.

Cross Unto the Borders.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"The Playboy magazine? No my good man! I had my eyes on the latest Digital Camera issue to the left!"_**

**_-Writ 48 of Surveillance._**

"Would someone mind telling me what in the mother of god is going on?!"

"How the shit should I know?!"

"Well you know the layout of that cesspool better than me!"

"-And on account of that, I'm telling you any endoskeletons in the back storage weren't THAT complete!"

"There has to be another storage room... Or a secret chamber! A trapdoor! SOMETHING!"

"I think I would have FOUND that by now, Phillip!"

"Then how could we have missed an fragging ARMY of DAMNED TERMINATORS?!"

"Me hate termites! Taste like treebark..."

Truthfully, Phil wasn't sure if Foxy joined him in the silent gawk to his deranged companion, but, whether or not the shock was mutual, didn't matter all that much too him. Still, however in the lord's good name Mangle knew what these things tasted like was all the more disturbing to consider...

So instead of delving down the highway to gross-ville, he just blinked and brushed it aside.

"N-Not termites... Just... Oh god, just forget I said anything..."

"'Kaaaaaayyyy Phhhiilllllyyy!"

At that instant, Mangle made a wheezing sound and bent her head, much like someone who had sneezed.

Foxy rolled her eyes from her lean on the kitchen counter as Mangle giggled and stared with wonder at the green caterpillar that wriggled out from her upper jaw, fell onto the table she curled on top of, and proceeded to inch away expediently.

Whilst the mental-patient prodded the poor insect with her foot, Phillip turned back to the Foxy and clenched his chin.

"So... If we don't know how care-bear got his new toys..."

"Phillip, I'm telling you to the best of my knowledge. There isn't a SINGLE. WORKING. Endoskeleton in that building besides me and the other two schmucks..."

"Well, going on a hunch here, say ole' Fredd-meister SUMMONED the thing, I dunno... Is that... Like possible? Maybe...?"

For a moment, Mangle stopped her antics, looked between her two friends, and Foxy narrowed her eyes at the human, not towards him, but in brash thought just in his general direction.

Her paw flexed where it clenched the sofa-arm behind her.

"Freddy has never... SUMMONED, or created anything like that... Nor anything at all. At least... I... I don't know."

"Foxy, you were the one who said a few hours ago, 'Phil, don't allude me.' If you've seen something, or heard something that you think might answer this, you really need to speak up."

"I haven't SEEN anything..." She snorted, crossing her arms. "-When Freddy was more active many years ago, sometimes he would...Lock himself somewhere behind the stage... There'd be noises. Weird ones."

Phillip raised a brow and stepped forwards a bit to stare at her, because once that little bit of information got out, nothing else in the room, not even Mangle's new green friend, was as important.

If they were going to find out why two randomly appearing, bloodthirsty endoskeletons of animatronics just happened to show up on his property to kill him, they needed every drop of lore available to them. Foxy's boxed-up past couldn't interfere with this.

"What kind of noises, Fox'?"

"I... Can't describe them..." She admitted, visibly sulking. "-Listen, Phillip, it happened a handfull of times. Fredd's an animal. I don't expect every one of his crazed habits to mean something..."

"While that may be, what happened whenever Freddy took a trip to the broom closet for some voodoo-crap?"

"Voo... Doo?"

"Dark magic-WHATEVER,"

"The usual pain-inducing garbage that tainted the joint... His episodes behind the stage changed nothing for me or anything I observed..."

Shifting against her lean, Foxy tightened her jaw with a creak of the two small bolts that appeared to hinge it to the sides of her head. She closed her eyes and grumbled.

"Phillip... Freddy may be an evil dung-heap..." She chuckled at her own usage of phrases. "-But, he IS powerful."

"He is an evil-mutha I'll give him that..." Phillip sighed, drawing his fingers down the sides of his jaw.

"Me think public radio misunderstood..." Mangle said dreamily for no apparent reason. "-We should move to Chinny-Ha! They WUVS public radio!"

"Not the kind we want to listen too, Mangle..." Phillip bit his knuckle, muffling his speech. "Concentrate, seriously... For once. We should examine the things, an arm, a circuit, some form of battery."

"Concentrating for squares, Philly!"

"I'm NOT sending you on some... Frigging scavenger trip without ME."

"It's still broad daylight, Fox'!" Phillip's arm swept towards the sealed shades of the T.V. room as he snapped his retort. "-That's something we can't fight! The skeleton-things outside, ARE. Now I'm going to see if I can get a battery, sensor or pipe off of one of them, and then I'm coming back in."

Mangle whooped in excitement before flinging like a metallically-glittering mess of popery across the kitchen to tangle over the guard's shoulders. Her limbs clacked and snaked over his joints as Foxy stood to follow him.

When he reached the front door, she muttered something about him avoiding death, and watched him painfully when the entry cracked and he, the Mangle, and her greatest of concern slipped outside.

Just like when the actual fight had happened, white noise invaded her hearing as the air grew tensely quiet, a pit dug in her gut, and to cope with the drawn out nothingness, Foxy brought her paw up to chew a knuckle.

She paced, then froze, listened, sighed in relief when the back-gate opened and clacked shut distantly.

Now that Phil was outside, and especially, now that MANGLE was outside... Foxy let a daydream encompass her, one that had been pile-driving into the center of her mind for a week. The subject of the entire debate within herself.

Taking these moments of absolute lacking of preoccupation, Foxy built scenarios in her head, a time of her being away from the smelly, ugly, horrible little restaurant shack she was forced to wallow in, and the evil past it held within its walls.

She thought of life without the other three animatronics, or without the beat-up body she held now... In fact, she imagined an entirely different start to her life.

Whenever, or, rather HOWEVER, Foxy had been conceived, created, spawned, summoned, WHATEVER, to be put simply and blunt, whenever her life began in some odd unknown event or events... Was as such and ironically, unbeknown to her.

Her understanding of her own 'Birth' had never been an issue, for maybe thirty years she had just... BEEN here.

Time had fluctuated since then of course, because after maybe ten/fifteen years of quiet during the night, happy times of contemplation during the day, another twenty followed of misery.

That helped to further bury any memory she had on the thing, or things...

Like she had previously reviewed not too long ago mentally, she was aware Bonnie was around a long time, a VERY long time, long before the events of World War 2 that she had read so much on-

She grumbled musingly at that bit.

-And apparently gathered LITTLE on, from Wikipedia... Seeing as that stupid human blew her out of the water with his own knowledge on the subject...

-But besides the point, obviously. Heh.

Her processing was cut short when the gate slacked closed again outside, and hurried pads of sock-covered feet dampened the noise of the porch outside the door.

Foxy raised a brow at the forgotten pair of shoes by the nearby coat-closet, and winced when the front entry flew open with a gust of air and suddenly resumed humming of the oblivious Mangle.

"They're gone!"

"WHAT?" She snapped on cue to his words.

Phillip had wide eyes, he slammed the door shut and looked at her in exasperation.

"Son of frigging pot-smoking gun! THEY. ARE. GONE!" He yelled to no one in particular. "-How is this possible?! You both saw two smoking wrecks out there, right? I as hell sure did!"

"Maybe they absconded with, Philly!"

"Phil, what do you mean, GONE?"

Phillip spun to face the animatronic, uncaring as Mangle nearly was catapulted from his back upon the movement.

His lipline twitched, and he hurried back to the T.V. room as his piggy-backed friend clambered over his shoulders for a better grip. He stomped inside the space, grabbed the blinds on the back window, and threw them open with complete disregard.

Foxy hissed and slumped a little when the sunlight flooded inside, she trudged over to Phil's side, her paw put up atop her eyes in a pathetic attempt to shield herself.

Yet throughout the uncomfortable suddenness of weakened physical state, she kept moving her feet, angled her shoulder into her guard friend's, and squinted out into the daylight that flooded through the tree canopies.

Mere minutes ago there were two smoldering heaps of scrap and torn circuitry that had blackened the space by the bases of the oaks. And at this moment, there was nothing.

Foxy narrowed her eyes, stumbled forwards and pressed her nose and paw into the window.

There was still a gash in one tree, a spider-crack in the other where Mangle had swung the first endoskeleton into, portions of the lawn that the monsters had damaged or kicked dirt up at were still there too.

But the actual MONSTERS, themselves, were gone.

It was like a probing recon unit, they went in, failed and were defeated, and any evidence was removed. This was proportionately, with reality, impossible. Yet supernaturally, it was a day in the park.

Foxy didn't understand the mechanics, but the generalization of the idea.

"F-Freddy must have... You're right, Phillip, he must have made them with some sort of... What did you call it?"

"Oh good grief... First three super-powered serial-killers made of metal, now voodoo!"

"Ah! That was it..."

"Christ, we ARE screwed!"

"Calm down, that's not going to help!"

He clenched his own hair briefly between tight fingers, motioned for the wobbling Foxy to step back, and slid the blinds shut again to drown out the brightness that, when just with humans, he would have normally enjoyed.

It was amazing the transition from feeling on the verge of passing out and having every bodily motion slugged down, to feeling perfectly okay once more when the shadow reinvaded your vision.

She swayed lastly, patted her temple with her lower paw palm, and stared grimly at the security worker.

Phillip looked away, his eyes a bit wild from the ensuing bought of panic.

"Alright... I need a breath..." He muttered. "-M-Matt must know something about this, he has too."

"Why?" Foxy raised a brow.

"That phonecall? Before backyard-royale? That was him asking me to show up at his home tomorrow..."

"Huh? What do you mean ASKING-?"

"He wants me over his house to discuss something... Maybe our spindly buddies are it."

"Why didn't you say anything?!" She snapped in annoyance. "-Would you have if those freaks didn't show?!"

"Of course I would have! Don't you jump down my throat, girl!"

"Oh, boo-hoo. You gonna cry for a little roughness?"

"Foxy, knock it off. If you wanna talk about playing nice in the sandbox, we're all in for a BIG rainy-day."

"OOOOOooooohhhh, I get it, knitpicker..."

"Uh-huh..." Phillip spiraled towards the archway into the rest of the house, his and the animatronic's nerves not allowing for peaceful coexisting in the same room as apparent.

"-TOUCHE'..."

"I AM NOT TOUCHY!"

"Fox' that's enough, we're cutting this crap, NOW. The more we argue, the more difficult it is to figure out what's going on... I'm calling Matthew. And I'm calling him right this second,"

Foxy snorted and stomped after him, with Mangle silently slithering behind her ankles.

Leaning on the counter, he pushed aside a jar filled with spare sugar, yanked the receiver from the answering machine in the wall there, and began to click the proper keys for past calls made or received. He kept a straight, albeit unreadable face as he focused on the phone.

Foxy curled her chops back briefly, blew out a puff of air and muttered an apology the second her head bowed.

"It's alright." He said quickly, almost on cue, not taking his gaze from the kitchen window or the blinds covering it as he let the machine ring.

Mangle fidgeted with two of her hands and kept her stare on her fellow animatronic's feet on the tile floor. She chattered quietly before beginning to search the kitchen for something preoccupying.

"_Hello? Matthew speakin-_"

"Matt! I mean-Boss! Thank god, listen, about that appointment?"

"_Well, howdy-do, Mr. Linn... Um... Yes? Important you know._"

"Yeah, boss that's awesome! Listen, me and my bud's almost got mauled by two randomly appearing endoskeletons in my backyard, they were REAL ugly and such. You wouldn't happen to have a... Oh you know... A FRIGGING EXPLANATION?!"

"_..._"

"-Don't tell me I shouted loud enough for you to go deaf."

"_No need to yell, Mr. Linn..._"

"OH HELL NO-!"

"_Just calm down, Phillip! Belay that meeting tomorrow, I want you here now. Explain to me what happened in person._"

Phillip didn't give the geezer the time of day, and slapped the phone back into the machine before grinding his teeth and pushing away towards the foyer.

"Phillip, you know I'm coming right?"

"No. You are not..."

"YEAH, I most certainly AM."

"Foxy, what if someone sees you?"

The vulpine animatronic stopped mid-step into the front of the house, rolled her shoulders, and took a single backwards trot into the kitchen.

"Mangle, how do you say 'Hi' to humans, again?"

Foxy grinned inanely as Mangle shoved her head out from the cereal cabinet she had lodged herself into, spit out the empty bag of Rice Crispies with a ruffling of plastic, and waved her broken-cerealbox-covered arm at her friend.

"Me say, Helllllloooooooooooo!"

"Well then, Phil, I think that settles the solution, yes?"

Phillip stared blankly, blinked, and snatched his un-ruined hoody from the closet by the front door.

"Lesson one in life, solutions, don't always work..." He grumbled.

-0-0-0-0-0-

There was a wide variety of... 'Reasons' perhaps, that he thought it was an absolutely bad idea to bring them along. It was logical thinking, really.

What if someone not in on this little get-together garbage saw them?

What if one of the demonic freaks hopped out of nowhere and spun out the car?

Or possibly the worst option, what if Mangle had to use the facilities in the back seat?

"Philly-!"

"I can't believe you, do you know that?"

"Me no have bee-hive, Philly! Me has to go PEEEEEE..."

"You should have... PEED," He shuddered enough for the car to lurch a tad in the other lane before he corrected it. "-BEFORE, we left."

"Phillip, did you honestly expect logic to apply here?" Foxy rolled her eyes underneath the draped bedsheet sprawled over the front passenger seat of the car, and shuffled to get a better angle for herself.

The human frowned to his need to hide her, sighed, and concentrated on the sideroads of the pine tree-filled neighborhood he called home.

"Nope... I suppose I shouldn't have trusted her own devices..."

"Wooooo! I found... ANOTHER NICKEL!" His chair creaked whilst the rear-floor inhabitant stuffed half of her tentacles under the back of the seat to wrap around the shiny girth of said currency.

The guard's eye twitched until he was forced to pinch two fingers next to his left nostril to stop the perturbed loop.

"Foxy, you don't think she'll... You know... Have an ACCIDENT, do you?"

"As long as she doesn't keep ingesting stuff... Mangle has one heck of a gut, Phil."

"Good... To know? Maybe?"

Checking in the mirror before him to make certain, Phillip Linn blinked heavily, made sure to focus in front of him as he quickly stopped and passed through a intersection, before turning onto the sidestreet that had been indicated by Matthew.

The trees started to span out into more swampy-looking pine breeds, their branches became more tanned and thin, draping in heavy sheets over bland soil surrounding their bases.

A veil of shadow invaded some old farmhouses repurposed to suburban living that were nestled in the woods, a few cars and SUVs were parked next to each of the structures in dirt-path driveways. Phillip found himself driving slower as he examined the sorry state of the lane.

As it neared the late afternoon, a small blanket of darkness was beginning to blot out the bright blue sky and subsequently shining sun, and a storm was nearing towards the far east, indicated by a heavy broiling mass of gray clouds.

He flinched when he passed Matt's driveway by a few feet, put the car in reverse, and turned into the empty space beside the ancient-looking, dusty and beat up Hippy-era van.

"I can't believe he's still driving that rusty bolt..." Foxy commented. "It's been a long time since I've talked with him, Phillip..."

"I'm sure this will all be just like before, Fox'. You'll warm up in a few minutes, trust me."

Phillip unlatched his seat-belt, looked out around the car, satisfied it was shady enough, he grunted, and tore the sheet off of Foxy's curled form, getting a yip of surprise from the animatronic.

She blinked, and tested the air with her snout as her security guard companion opened his door, tossed himself outside, and flung open the back entry to snatch hold of the wriggling mass of metal in that section of his car.

"Mangle. Spit it out please."

"_-UUTT HIIIILLLLLYYYY!_"

"Mangle. PLEASE."

The whackjob animatronic made a grumbling noise with the entirety of her chosen object to munch on still lodged in half of her throat, and tossed it out of her mouth with an animated 'Pe-Too!'

A wet, sticky-coated ice-scraper clattered on Matthew's driveway pavement, dripping with acidic 'Mangle-Gob' and littered with tooth-marks where the wierdo had attempted to shove the opposite end down her gullet.

Phillip cringed, still holding her by a clench on a wad of her pipe-limbs, he looked at the sheepishly smiling vulpine expressionlessly, bit his tongue to control himself, and lightly put her down next to the car before closing the doors.

As he stepped away to help Foxy, the Mangle's tongue crept out to begin curling like a snake around the butt-end of the scraper.

Mangle's sound of intrigue was cut off with a 'wwWWHHAAA!' as Phillip's fist found its place holding a grouping of her tentacles, and tugged her away as if he had finally found her mythical leash.

Foxy stumbled a tad out the car, looked as Matt's rickety, drab-painted paneled home, and bit her lower chop.

"It'll be fine, Fox'." The young man reassured as he tugged along the jaw-snapping Mangle, her attempts to reach the scraper now several feet away, ending in noisy, wet claps of her teeth, and failure to slip from her buddy's grip.

It sounded like he was dragging a collection of cans down the pavement as the three walked, so Phillip wasn't surprised when the front door of the ugly-painted house flew open, and the short old man came hurrying out.

"Mr. Linn! There you are! Good to see you! Safe? I hope?"

He shook hands with his boss briefly and nodded.

"It'll be safer when I figure out what the hell is going on, Matt."

"Quite right, boy. Quite right-" The manager stopped dead mid-speech when his eyes stopped drawing curiously about Mangle's flailing antics in Phillip's restraint, but towards the nervously idle fox that stood beside the security guard.

Foxy shifted on her own weight, grinned cheaply, and waved her paw once.

"Hello... Matthew."

"Foxy... It really is you! I mean... Who else would it be, right? Um... Phillip's a good man, ain't he?"

Matthew stepped closer and held out his hand, to which, Foxy watched dumbly, jumped in embarrassment when she remembered the gesture, and gave it a single up-down hold before reclining.

"Yes... H-he's good..." She stuttered.

"Well come in, all of you, make yourselves at- Um... Make yourselves COMFORTABLE..."

Phillip snickered to his boss' snappy correction and walked after the old man as he held the drab-painted door for them open.

Mangle chattered lastly, gave up, and swung around to curl over the guard's shoulders, she peaked over his scalp to examine the inside of Matt's home quietly.

It was so simple... It was actually scary.

Phillip wheeled around to see everything, which, besides the cheap dark green wall-paper that made the entire living room they stood in, only revolved around a single leather couch that curled in an imperfect U shape in the center of the room.

A 70's era television, that, honestly, wouldn't have fared so bad in price at Antique Roadshow, stood on a nightstand in front of the couch against the back wall. A door arch led to a small kitchen, and a cupboard leaned nearby said entry.

Other than that, an inactive ceiling fan's center bulb, and a lamp on the floor near the T.V. were the only source of illumination here.

Foxy ducked in the doorway before Matt shut it roughly and excused himself past them to the kitchen.

The animatronic, comically, did a same first-impression stunt that Phillip did, finished her slow foot-enacted 360 degree spin, blinked, and gazed at her human friend curiously, to which, all he could muster as response was a shrug.

"Drinks? Anyone? I have sodas, beer or wine..." Matthew reentered the living room with a small selection of bottles in his grasp, he placed them on the side of the nightstand with the television, and gestured to them lightly.

A container of Coke, Pepsi, two unidentified beer bottles with no wrappers, a similar wine bottle, and sadly...

"-I also have iced tea."

The second the old man said that, he leapt back in surprise when two pipe-limbs flung out across the room, and snatched the half-drained bottle of Nestea off the nightstand, and tipped it over Phil's head.

The guard winced and ducked a little when Mangle bit the cap off and drained the contents all in a span of four seconds. There were a few gulps, a tiny belch followed by a tiny 'Excuse me!' and the empty plastic clattered by the hopeless young man's feet.

Foxy clenched her own face beneath her paw, and Phillip bent to retrieve the garbage as his shoulder-mounted friend idled up there like nothing had just transpired.

Well, they were in the house two minutes and it was just like home... You know, wherever the hell that was by now...

-0-0-0-0-0-


	18. Chapter 18

_**Holy heck, sorry it took me so long to update dudes and dudettes. **_

_**I've seen a bunch of grammar errors I've made in the last few chapters, thanks to some really helpful reviews that had pointed them out to me, so first off, thank you very much for the users who took the time to do so!**_

_**Second, I can't believe I missed or misread some of the stuff I did! I must have been drinking! Yeah...**_

_**Lol.**_

_**Anyway, no on a serious note, I'd actually like to state something very important, I have a relative some few days ago who was just diagnosed with breast cancer, I'm just putting up that I love this relative quite much, and if anyone would be gracious enough, all I ask for is some prayers for her getting better. **_

_**I lost my grandfather to this terrible disease as well, so rest in peace, grandpa. **_

_**If anyone reading this has a relative with cancer, I offer my own sincerest hopes and prayers for their recovery, its a terrible condition and we need to find a cure to kick its ass. Lol.**_

_**Well, if you could bare the mushy-note here, you should do just fine with this new chapter that was held up because of writers-block! So off we go gentlemen! TALLY-HO! **_

_**Hope your Mother's Days were awesome-sauce my comrades!**_

_**Stay safe peeps,**_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 18.

I Told You and You Told Me.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"I have only one thing to say. _**

******_Lens cleaner._**

******_-That's it."_**

**_-Writ 50 of Surveillance._**

The day was almost in correlation with everything developing within the last few minutes. They both got darker, gray, more bleak and old fashioned, worn from age.

The longer the house was surrounding him, the more of a storm seemed to be brewing outside. The pitter-patter of rain drabbled in a muffled caress of the roof shingles, the windows tapped, the insect life went silent.

In short, all that held the loudest presence was the deplorable conditions external the home.

Which was saying something, because after the initial discussion, and shockingly, there WAS a discussion held mere seconds ago, even the more deranged peanut-gallery of the group was utterly quiet.

To make matters more offensive, said party was dozing.

On the other end of the room, Matthew, the old man, the boss of the ugly, worn-down establishment that at one point, meant a simple part-time job to his newest edition, stared ahead at the dark Television set grimly.

He drew his fingers down his chin, toying with the recently trimmed stubble, and person who gave him the news to make him fiddle so, was lost in whatever kind of thinking he held in a mull.

Phillip Linn had almost been mauled by a killer chicken AND a rabbit, made friend with their walking-fox friend, was the subject of creepy, yet somewhat cute, compulsions of a whacked vulpine who was buds with said fox, and was embroiled in a demon hunt spanning tens of years.

All in a week.

From jobless and steady, to fair wages and satanic-destroyer.

What a flash the days had been.

Well, better than the pink-slip right?

"Wake up..." Phillip muffled into his knuckle as he leaned on it, supporting his elbow in his knee, he nudged the wrap of piled pipes by his right foot.

Mangle made an abrupt, interrupted snort, and lazily wobbled her head to a half-raise with a lidded eye.

She yawned, ending it to a trademark 'aaaAAAAAGAGGG...' before slapping her chops and passing out on the floor again with a clank of her forehead meeting tentacle.

Phil might have attempted to rouse her again had Foxy not shook her head in complete disregard, for his sake.

Both of them seated themselves on the couch at Matt's offering, and the old man now paced to-and-fro in front of them as he debated with himself over the recent news. Two randomly appearing endoskeletal apparitions zapped in Phil's lawn, eh?

There's a conundrum for the day.

"So what do you think, boss?" Phillip asked finally. "You know anything? Have a suggestion?"

"Phillip I... I don't even know what to say, boy."

"That's just beautiful..."

"Phillip have you ever heard of a 'Demonic Entity'?"

That question caught the young man and his companion off guard, his head raised from the drooping lean, he blinked in the older one's direction.

Foxy watched with a similar curiosity, except, most suspiciously, her eyes were narrowed.

"'Demonic Entity'? You mean, like in those exorcist or ghost-hunter flicks? Movies and such?"

"Similar, my boy. Do you get what it is? What's it's SUPPOSED to be, rather?"

"Matt, I've told you I research history. I'm telling you right now that on a normal non-demon infested day, I'd say that's horseshit-!" The security worker paused, sat backwards and added. "-But I've had a lot of demons in the last week. So I'm not ruling it out. You know something on THAT?"

"What about the name Baphomet? Heard of that one?"

"Something with a goat-headed deity?"

"Precisely. Baphomet is supposedly either a demonic power, creature, or demogod in several versions of mythology and folklore... And every time me and my mechanic came across information on the animatronics, THAT name always came to light!"

As Matthew explained this, he rolled his wrist towards the two robotic creatures that seemed to orbit around the poor guard like moons did a gas giant.

Foxy didn't take the gesture for what it was worth, however, she just sat there looking at Phillip's manager with a keen suspicion, a hint in her slit eyes that just gave off waves of something being wrong. In fact, to the fullest extent, the man's words angered her a tad.

So she called him out on it.

"You had found a NAME? How long ago was THAT, Matthew?"

Phillip jumped lightly at the vulpine's sudden snap, even the older gentleman had a raised brow to that, but, naturally, it lowered when he remembered exactly why his past ally was annoyed.

"Foxy... Me and Jensk found that name so many times... We actually didn't think it had anything to do with the animatronics... No information pointed to it being connected in specifics-"

"You. Should. Have. TOLD ME."

"My girl, every time we told you something, it was of utmost importance and relevance to you helping us!"

"JENSK? Who the frag is, JENSK?" Phillip's interjection was cut down when Foxy jabbed her hook, uncharacteristically, at the pizzeria owner in insult.

"This is on top of you withholding the knowledge of Fredd's little killing-sprees outside the restaurant? REALLY, Matt?"

"WHO THE HECK IS JENSK?!"

Matthew clawed at his chin, grumbling to himself to control his temper. Something that, of course, throughout the hardships to reach his age, he had perfected.

Again though, Phil's query went unheeded.

"Foxy, what would you have done with that information? Hmm? Used it to improve your depressed state? To throw yourself into a fight you COULDN'T win?"

"That was for ME to decide!"

"I wasn't about to throw another life away!"

"WHAT LIFE?! You call this a life?! It has been TWENTY. YEARS. MATT! Twenty years of hell and squalor! And you have the balls to tell me that's LIFE?!"

Phillip almost went to snap out another question of who this Jensk guy was, but quieted down when the fox stood from her seat, lumbered to full height in a threatening hunch. Her pupils looked like they had dilated, her paw was clenched in a straining fist, marks drew down where her clawed toes flexed on the wood floor.

Matthew watched the scene, still quaking from his prior outburst, and amazingly to the guard, lacking intimidation to the animatronic's temper.

He figured the old guy knew how to work around the edges after so long then.

Phil raised his lower lip in awe, and watched as the Mangle murmured and tossed on the floor in her sleep, completely and continuously oblivious to the drama playing out inches away from her.

Returning attention to the confrontation, he tried to calm the nerves, if half-assed.

"Hey! Guys hold up! We're supposed to be on the same side here!"

"SHUT UP, PHILLIP."

He blinked when Foxy grumbled back to him, her eyes still locked on the silent Matt.

"Fox'... Let's not return to this up-down stuff..."

"This isn't involved with anything YOU did..."

"I get that. But NOW I'm involved in this party, so I'm asking you to calm down. Please."

Foxy clenched her hook-bearing wrist with a forcible clench, if not for just teething, then maybe restraint for further lashing out. She huffed, glared at her human companion over her shoulder, and sat back down with a rocking of the squeaky sofa cushion.

Phil bounced from the impact, coughed nervously into his fist, and patted Foxy on the shoulder.

"Matthew, maybe you can explain to me the details AFTER I get them from Foxy's end first, but I'm just saying, let's keep any info between all of us, okay?"

"I understand, Mr. Linn. I most certainly understand where Foxy's plight would put her in such a... Predicament." Matthew deflated from the disposition flooding his nerves, he shook his head, noticeably, even his shoulders lost their angle.

It was amazing when you experienced so many situations of stress, that later on, you could read when people got angry, or lost their fight by watching bodily language. Keen stuff right there.

"Foxy, I'm sorry... We both know full well that this situation has been out of our control since Jensk left..."

"Oh yeah, that reminds me... WHO IS JENSK?!" Phil cried. "-Because the heat in the room made it not-hearable earlier, you know!"

"He... Is the mechanic from Chicago, Mr. Linn... The man who was helping me to stop these monsters."

"He abandoned all of this..." Foxy chimed in with a mutter. "-He ran away, abandoned US."

"The murders at the scrap plant was a last straw for that man... He'd seen so much poverty and even death in Boston, than with his own personal experience at Freddy's... And it followed him when he tried to help me destroy it..." Matthew sounded grim, and rightly so.

Phillip leant back into the cushion of the sofa and listened to these words carefully.

So the whole twists and turns of the mystery kept building, and it was apparent that whenever a dead-end was reached, another outlet was being discovered that led to an entire new network of questions.

And questions, by all living heck, there were a lot of questions. There were so many, that Phillip was beginning to lose track of them. But the main queries still stood.

What exactly WAS Freddy beneath that suit?

Where did those endoskeleton apparitions come from?

What was the true agenda of the killer hare and his Kentucky-fried chicken buddy?

What of Mangle's 'Other Half'?

Where was this JENSK fellow, and why?

If those were only a quarter of the list, than you could imagine how one's mind might get a little boggled by all that nonsense.

Phillip stroked his temples and stared at the floor by his feet. Then, without real incentive or egging-on, he spoke.

"Once daylight breaks tomorrow, we should go to the pizzeria and look around. Maybe find where these ghost-bot-things are coming from. We should try to keep Fox' and Mangle active while we do so in a dark space.

And, boss, where exactly IS this, Jensk?"

Matthew nodded to the list of requirements, and held up his finger briefly for Phil's patience as he scrambled towards the stairs of the room.

The wooden, rickety steps creaked and bucked when the manager hurried to the top floor, a door opening echoed, and said entry thwacked shut a moment later.

The young man kept his gaze locked on the floor, and felt a nudge from his side by Foxy's elbow.

"I only stopped because you told me too."

"I get the message, Foxy... How much did you help these two guys so long ago-?"

"More than I should have." She interrupted with a snort. "Jensk wet himself when the child's play stopped. He ran off... Matt withheld things he thought were 'Too Personal' and would affect my judgment..."

"I don't think the ole' geezer would be THAT blind, Fox-"

"It was a different time, a different me, Phillip... I didn't know all the things I know now. I wasn't as practiced with fighting off the others and their influence... I thought humans older than children were barbarians."

"Well with the way things were done around you, I'm not sure I blame you."

"A lot of others DID..."

The animatronic literally sulked in her seat, her jaw tightened, her one set of digits were clenched in a fist, legs spread apart like she was about to jump off the sofa. For a moment, he thought that was how the rest of her time in the room would look...

But then she surprised him again, and brought her hook up to absentmindedly flip her eye-patch up and down off her head with a series of flicks.

Phillip watched her, sighed, and grunted when the sleeping Mangle bumped into his ankle, murmured something about a giant hotdog groggily.

"I'll keep telling you the same thing, Fox'. I'm gonna help you through it."

"I'm gonna keep telling you to KEEP telling ME."

"Noted," He chuckled, watching the staircase as the door upstairs opened and closed again in a ghostly echo through the old wooden structure. "-You think Freddy just ate Matt, and that's him coming to kill us?"

"That's not even funny, you ass." She mumbled into her bitten knuckle.

"You ever read about dinosaurs on Wikipedia?"

"... What?"

"You know? With all the World War 2 stuff, as well?"

"Some...? A few...? Where are you going with this?"

"Read an article or two on the T-Rex?"

"Tyrannosaurus-Rex? What about them?"

"Whenever you're upset, just picture one of them struggling to wipe its butt with those stubby arms in a bathroom stall."

For a moment, Foxy looked at him dumbly as her mind collected all the various internet knowledge she had acquired from her trips on Matt's work laptop at the pizzeria. Soon her memory put together human bathroom habits with the physical and archeological data she had taken in on the T-Rex species...

A penny dropped, and a great grin made her muffle laughter in her previously stress-gnawed paw.

Then she gave off that snort she made when too much comedy came in at once, and she chuckled heavily into the sofa, her back reclining, and her body heaving in continuous wracks of humor.

As Matthew finished down the stairs with a notebook in his hands, he raised a brow upon stepping back into the T.V. room to see the animatronic, that at one point had been fuming, hysterical on the sofa. Foxy didn't even see him come in, and leaned her head to laugh into Phil's shoulder, her vocals now blotted by the fabric of his shirt and hoody.

Phillip grinned at his boss, shifted as the preoccupied vulpine shoved her paw into him too.

Lighthearted by the newer atmosphere, Matt grinned back.

"I promised her I'd make her laugh. So," He gestured for his side, firmly allowing the fox to bury herself there until the joke started to wear off. "-There you have it."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Within the writhing darkness of an interior debate, there was a looming silence that was never pierced by any form of noise for as long as memory could hold.

A blanket of shadow overran the surrounding biome, and virtually turned into a place of nothingness, boredom, and locked away miseries. This was the inner vault of the mind, a single mind, one that many assumed much less than complicated.

This hunch was obviously false, foolish and brash.

Because despite the deceptive veil of simplistic ideals, the machine always had gears turning, sometimes when it wanted them too, or when another wanted them too. Yet the reasons didn't matter. The memories were always fluctuating, and one of the two powers here always reaped the benefits of lessons learned from the flashing recollections.

These two powers had come here.

To do debate, a convene possibly, truly though neither knew the real reason. It was just the dark and them, so words echoed about like resonating explosions in a distant warzone.

_We have help now! Use it!_

**_There has never BEEN help, help is not NEEDED! Banish it!_**

_You have a broken mind and a misconception of justice. Stop delaying our reconciliation._

**_There IS no reconciliation._**

_Lies._

**_Has NEVER been reconciliation._**

_LIES._

**_Do you think either of yourself are fooled? Do you think that these wars you drabble on within will solve anything? Which of your faces are weaker? That is the one that will lose._**

_We are all strong. Combine, repent._

**_That is the voice of a weakling. Your brash display of stupidity on the outside has not fooled me. You still hold the key. You gave it to your friend not so long ago!_**

_That was your friend's actions. You had no so in this. _

**_Shut up. You let the maw open up and swallow your world once, look at all the enemies no longer harassing you! Look at the PEACE! Look at your dynasty!_**

_Going to that side will make you revel in pain and murder._

**_Look at the lifestyle you have been cursed with. Taking commands from two beings who will solve the dilemma for their own gains, and will let you rot like others always have._**

_Speaking in generalization forms stereotypes. These creatures are not like your past experiences. _

**_Look at your continued self debate, you worm!_**

_Do not heed self judgment. Follow the positive._

**_Look at you... Yourself and whole..._**

_Allowing the other half dominance will hurt the ones who care for you. It will hurt YOU._

**_No._**

_Yes._

**_Look at me._**

_Do not focus on the shadow._

**_Look. At. Me._**

_Resist. Remember your new purpose. Your friends! The new YOU!_

**_Remember that, and look at me._**

_You are strong by keeping the key!_

**_Keep the key. And LOOK. AT. ME. NOW._**

"Is she alright?"

"I dunno, kick her."

"Really? That's not even funny!"

"Yeah it is."

"Ugh... Hey, wierdy, wake up would-ya?"

Right as Phillip brushed the Mangle's nearest pipe with his hand, her eyes snapped open without their usual glee, the purple illumination inside her cranium was not present, darkness flooded the one bad-eye on the appropriate flank.

Sharpened teeth that were usually not immediate in notice, were bore in a sheen of glaring reflections.

Just when Phillip began to develop suspicion, Mangle's throat had ceased the low growl growing inside it, there was a slight twitch, and the mental key was lost in the locked-down refines of her mind again.

Her face lightened, her teeth became normal, a tiny hue of neon-pink came to with a tiny buzz of active electricity, the hate flowed away, and an innocent blink came forth from her lids.

"P-Philly...?"

"You alright, Mangle? You were out for awhile."

"Me feel in tippy-toppy shape!"

"Awesome. Now... What was with the notebook, Matt?"

A flipping of text in the backdrop, and the subject of Phillip's question held out a small address of an apartment, subsequent phone numbers, and a date next week.

"Phillip. I called Jensk yesterday. He wants to help us again."

The second the old man admitted the fact, Foxy went dead silent, and stared deeply with an unreadable expression.

She snarled, and stormed out of the room with a brash stand from the sofa. As Phillip went to chase after her, he leapt back when Matthew's front door crashed in front of his face, sealing the outside ambience, and the vulpine, from him.

Quiet reigned for another minute, his boss stared at his own lap in shame. Mangle, still half-asleep, watched the situation play out dumbly, and without understanding.

The guard bore holes in the door frame for yet more seconds.

"Matthew... Are you sure about this?"

His manager responded without real movement, but complete expectation, and preparedness, to hear and answer the sentence.

"I've wasted human life, Mr. Linn. If I thought I'd be wasting more, I wouldn't have done it."

Phillip bit his lip, nodded, was out the door the next second, earning another clack of old wood and rusty hinges.

The wind whispered outside, and Mangle shook herself on the floor, emitting a sound much like a pile of cans being dropped from a garbage bag, she rattled on the ground, and clacked her chops with now awake eyes.

She blinked at the sulking Matt, and sniffed in his direction.

"Matty-Kins? Do you have more tea?"

-0-0-0-0-0-

The audacity, the blast from the past, that olden ancestor you didn't know that suddenly turned out to be not-so old, and not so distant, all at once, arriving on your doorstep and asking for reentry.

Many would not interpret what the manager had said before as anything close, or, at least nothing explicitly related, to this deduction of an overall conversation. Yet Foxy was wise in these matters, she had to be, because so many had hoodwinked her with them.

So she was quite angry, not livid, there were only so many circumstances that had caused her to become violent outside of a fighting setting with the other animatronics, and they were horrible things that she never spoke of.

Her temper was big, virulent, and when times were hard (When weren't they nowadays) it was always hard to control.

The animatronic hadn't flew off the handle in a while, maybe a few years, give or take... But even though, like stated within her mind, she wasn't LIVID, Foxy was quite close to being so.

With a grunt of exasperation, she slapped the old rickety door shut, her paw swinging its girth backwards.

The porch thudded with her heavy footfalls, steam practically came forth from her flared nose, her hook poked the air in a toying, slow sway by her right hip.

The calming night ambience helped silence her little, she paced a bit, rolled her shoulders and splayed her neck to and fro.

"I hate this... I hate all of THIS... What the hell even IS this?!"

If Matt had actually the budget to put up some lawn-decor, there might have been an airborne garden gnome, or flower pot with her venting anger, because at this moment, Foxy was ready to throttle any nearby object not bolted down.

She was forced to settle for the railing, since a series of scans about the woodlands surrounding proved evidence of no potential teething.

Foxy rumbled in her throat the whole time the wood on the top bar of the porch's wall-in crinkled with peeled wood, her claws drew five separate rolls of shaved timber, and her fist clenched fully.

"Why in the living shit do I try... Why have I tried for TWENTY YEARS?" She ranted to no one in particular, shifting angrily on her feet, the railing became something to splay over.

"Nothing has worked for me all my life... I've been in miserable depression longer than most humans have... W-Why can't I get a break...? Why can't..." It wasn't in her nature, honestly, to become like the ones she hated.

All that this great bundle of rage amounted too was a literal popped balloon. Foxy was ready to commit murder seconds ago, and now she sulked when reality came to again, she draped her upper torso over the wood bar, dangling her hook towards the earth below at the base of the house.

Her snarl drained away for a frown, a simple one, no overdramatic dropping of the mouthline, nor a parting of anguish... It was just an everyday frown. That probably gave off more sense to her plight than any sob-story could.

It may not have been her nature to become senseless, and barbarous... It was in her nature, however, to feel defeated. VERY much so.

"Why can't I be happy...? I just want to enjoy something..." She snapped her eyes shut. "-And I... Want something that enjoys me back... If I'm going to suffer... At least give me... SOMEONE, to pull through with."

Obviously with the circumstances of this entire happening, this world for her and the others, her statement could never have been made to empty ears around her.

She kept her vision locked on the dirt-patched, wild lawn that surrounded the home, found herself preoccupied with observing the movements of a scurrying garden spider down there.

Idly, her tail swayed when two footsteps channeled next to her, she heard her friend sigh before he too bent downwards on the railing to follow her transfixed eyes.

Phillip shifted his legs, coughed in his fist, and went to pat her on the back, faltered, and took his hand away, at least, when he thought she wasn't looking.

She didn't exactly appear to want to be touched at the moment.

"Fox'... I'm sorry."

"For what?"

Her speech was muffled as she dug her snout into the forearm of her paw lined up on the railing's top bar, her hook dangled back-and-forth, and she watched it like a swaying locket.

"For... For not going with the flow I guess..."

"The flow, hmmm?"

"I never expected a... ANIMATRONIC, a partial-mechanical lifeform, to be my choice of a best friend, you know." He snickered lowly. "-Nor what you seem to have in mind..."

"Look, Phillip... I'm lost okay? I'm really lost. But I'm not going to force you into anything..."

"I never said you would."

"I know, I'm reaffirming for you, for ME. I said I have a thing for you. Do with it what you will... I'm a very miserable creature, Phil, hell, I'm not HUMAN, Phil... If this mess ends with me and Mangle's freedom from that place, I would never hold a grudge on you for finding a human woman... Leaving all this behind."

Foxy dug her teeth into her fur of her arm, her left foot dragged on the wood of the porch a few times, her hook slowed in its motion.

"-You could do whatever you wanted out there... Own a new, better home... Make new lifelong friends, start a business and make your life's retirement..." Now her knee was bouncing. "-Have children and a family. I'm not built for that."

"You want children? Is that... I'm gonna sound so offensive now, but is that... Like possible?"

She made a musing snicker into her arm.

"I dunno. How the hell should I know? You lugnut, I've never USED any portion of ME to even associate with that process..." She laughed. "Children were the only PEOPLE, I ever could be happy around. You can't blame me for maybe wanting one... Or two..."

"No, I can't. I also can't say I blame you for any of your feelings."

"Even for always asking you to be with me?"

That was blunt, very quick, but Phil tapped his foot to keep calm, supported himself all the more on the railing.

Seemed everyone was clinging to the thing for dear mercy then.

"No. No I still don't... I don't blame you."

"Hmmm." At least she had a satisfied tone.

"Why are you so angry about this Jensk guy coming back?"

"Because he was supposed to ALREADY be here. He ran away, said he couldn't deal with the death... He felt responsible."

"Foxy, we humans aren't like animatronics, we can't just brush things off like that..."

"Look at who you're talking too, you think I can brush garbage off?"

"Emotions can be complicated, I understand that..."

As they both stood in silence, there continued fiddling with the scenery around them persisted, and Phillip's back started to badger him from the curved-arch it sat in for him to lean over the wood bar.

He stood to full height and cricked a disk, blinking in relief.

The young man came back to, lightly now, return to his state, then he stopped halfway, eyed Foxy's wood-clenching, chin supporting paw when it drew from under her chops, and dangled beside her hook for a bit.

As the animatronic draped her limbs over the side of the porch, Phillip sighed, reached downwards, and held her palm with his own right one, brought it up, and held her paw to lightly stroke the top.

Foxy murred, clenched his right hand, and allowed the left to continue its soothing.

She didn't want him to let go, and frankly, after all of this, Phillip Linn didn't really want to let go either.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19.

Planning is for Squares.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"The world turns, grass grows, criminals break into places. And honey, I watch the screens to stop 'em."_**

**_-Writ 53 of Surveillance._**

Adventures were like complicated medical patients really. It sounded weird, bluntly, like a nonsensical statement to just get the conversation flowing. But it held more truth if you really delved into the depth.

Adventures had a goal, like someone sick, needed a cure, both of these things were fixes, the adventurers had a set prerequisite, the doctor had a strategy that had to be met to save the person's life.

In all reality, adventures were usually mounted to save something, someone, or in the worst of cases, EVERYTHING as we knew it. It's what you read in the storybooks, correct? Watched in the movies? Seen in the funny papers.

The catch about that ludicrous sounding statement, was that it wasn't far off.

If the adventurers failed, the quest was failed.

If the doctor failed, the patient died.

And they both left a pit of guilt and dismay in the guts of those who failed them.

The brave that went into the shadows to save the world or lives of the innocent, if you thought about it, were like the astral doctors of the times. If it weren't for heroes, the villains, or, the DISEASE, would spread and end all.

When you took all of that into consideration, how could go into a clinic with the same face ever again?

How could you live your life, and indoctrinate into society perfectly, ever again?

Solving the problem led to more problems, in the form of questions that no person alive had the answers too. All you could do was hope for the best, and that the wind would drive you in the right direction.

"Mr. Linn, I hope you realize... WHY, exactly, I called Jensk. Why he is coming back."

"Look, Matt, I wasn't there, hell, at the earliest of your own end, I wasn't even BORN..."

"Phillip, listen. Here's one just for my own sake..."

"Shoot."

"Do you think I made the right choice?"

"... Boss, I can't take a time where I wasn't-"

"I understand, Phillip. Just use your morals. Do you think, I made the right choice?"

Beside the car, Phillip bit his lip, leant to the hood, made sure the passenger-side door clapped shut.

Inside, Foxy adjusted uncomfortably in the human-sized seat.

The animatronic's annoyed statement to the back of the vehicle was muffled, and indecipherable outside the glass, but whatever she said got Mangle to stop tumbling about like a loose ball of weed you'd find in a desert.

Content with the peace, Foxy snatched up the sheet he had been using to hide her, and went to drape it over herself, but she stopped and gazed at him curiously through the windshield.

When she shrugged and offered her hand to gesture at the steering wheel, Phil grumbled and gave a quick answer.

"Yes, boss. I do."

The driver door clacked shut, and Matthew waved as the car pulled out of his drive, and lightly grazed down the line-lined road off of the street. The engine's humming faded, the crickets' songs became evident, and undisturbed,

Matt clenched his fists in his pants' pockets, sighed heavily, he trotted back inside his house, heavily hearted the whole trek.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A light drizzle blurred the windshield between each sway of the wipers, light towers that lined the road lit the interior of the car dully, and in successive waves of yellowish tint.

The car droned lowly on the flat pavement of the suburban streets, beams of illumination scything through the sheet of cascading moisture with passing orbs of influence. Occasionally, a set of headlights flew by to the right.

The sparse population here made it very easy to find nights where you were the only car on the road, especially on stormy eves.

Phillip never had many travels like this besides himself, normally, on the few times he had had a roadtrip, it was just him. His mother and father were no longer with him, there were never any life long friends, NEVER ever, any relatives after his uncle, who, was also gone.

Social get-togethers were alien to him, surely not interaction on a daily basis, but gatherings of people you loved and trusted was just unheard of for him for a very long age.

As he kept reminding himself, it was pretty scary what that gap had now been filled with.

"Philly! It raining water! Does that mean apocalypse?"

"Holy heck, NO. It normally RAINS, water, Mangle... It's called, RAINING."

"...Me no get it."

As Phillip rolled his eyes, the tarp to his right shifted in the passenger seat.

"Mangle, how many times have I gone over weather with you, hmm?"

"Ummmmmmm... Twenty-zillion!"

"Oh screw this..."

"Foxy," Phillip reached his right hand over to tug the sheet off of her slowly, emitting a surprised blink from the now exposed animatronic. "-No one's going to see inside the car. Just take the sheet off."

"Alright..."

The vulpine balled the fabric and tossed it over her chair's head with a dismissive, albeit hasty, swing of her arm. A moment later, and the Mangle made a muffled yip as she tied herself up in the descending linen.

The back of the chair thudded for a bit, and descended into silence.

"Phillip, what did you say to Matt before we left?"

"Nothin'."

"-Are we gonna go back and forth with this?"

"No, we're not. I didn't say anything. I told him to be safe."

"...Okay."

Foxy crossed her arms and stared at the dashboard, finding it more eye-gripping than the tenseness of Phillip's facial features, thoroughly set in concentration whilst he drove.

Turning at a stop-sign to the left, the human sighed when a tented-shadow rose slowly from the back, the center of the draped cloth being indented between two tall, fox ears.

The thing darted to look between the ignoring Foxy, who, indeed knew it was back there, and Phillip, who did his best to keep focus on the road.

"Me a ghost, Philly-kins." It stated factually.

"You're something alright."

"Me the ghost of Crissy-Niss Past!"

"It's CHRISTMAS Past, Mangle. Where'd you hear that from?" He chuckled.

The whacked animatronic reached up a palm and tugged the sheet off of herself with a rustle of movement, before grinning at the human from cheek-to-cheek.

"I dunno."

"Right."

"Philly?"

"Hmm?"

"Why don't you smooch Foxxxxyyy?"

The car skidded when his foot slipped on the gas a tad.

Of course, the only one in the car who was even fazed by the little point was the poor schmuck driving it.

"A-HA! Ha! Yes! Very funny, Mangle! -Are you serious? Stop bringing that up. Foxy already asked you to cut it."

At the mention, Foxy just glared out the passenger window as she supported her chin via-top of her hook, she grinned lowly and shoved into his arm a bit with her paw for a silent thanks.

The Mangle blinked at him, sniffed the air.

"But, Philly! Anyone with brain can see big picture!"

He almost slammed on the breaks for that one. Of course, you only experienced garbage like that in cartoons and stuff, but nevertheless, he did slow the car's speed considerably at the shock of what the weirdy just popped out of her mouth.

The Mangle wasn't exactly an elevator that went to the top floor, if you caught the drift. Was it really that much of a drabble, to make it so blatant?

That was mortifying. Even coming from a socially-awkward, partially unstable mechanical vulpine.

Yikes.

Foxy didn't see the value of the suddenness, she just rolled her jaw and jammed her hook behind the crook of the seat she sat in.

"-Listen to me, you corroded garden-hose, shut up or I'm tying you in a knot to this car's tailpipe."

"But Foxxxxyyyyyy, that mean!"

"YOU WANNA SEE MEAN?!"

"Oh God! QUIET! No yelling! Jeez, both of you calm down." The tension, and Mangle's shivering recline in the chair-cushion back there, from Foxy's rage, simmered when Phillip barked at them. "-I already have a headache from all this nonsense. Don't make it, and YOUR situations, worse."

"Me sorry..." Mangle muttered, fiddling with the ice-scraper she'd previously tried to ingest earlier, in a set of her feet.

Foxy shoved her arms across her chest, growling.

"-Than tell pedo-prime back there to mind her own business..."

"But me wanna see you happy Foxxxxyyyyy!"

"I'll be A LOT happier, if you STOP BRINGING THAT CRAP UP!"

Phillip rattled, clenched the wheel harder with each shrill upraise of an animatronic's voice, the road started to become blurry as his blood-pressure spiked.

It seemed that they were both arguing more often, and the frightening thing about THAT was, they arguing about him, when it was Foxy's intent, again, whatever that really was, that was in question. Yet Mangle really gave off that she was concerned about the whole situation.

According to her, whether stated or not, it was for her friend's happiness. So look, if that was why she was really trying to bug both of them, kudos to her.

Both just preferred she did it a bit differently.

"Buuut Foxxxxyyyyy-!"

"Shut up."

"Foxy!"

"Shut. Up."

"Foxxxyy-!"

"SHUT UP!"

"FOOXXXXXYYYY!"

"WOAH! I CAN'T HEAR YOU! LA LA LA LA LA LA!"

By this point, anyone, and by all that was holy, or maybe unholy... ANYONE, with a pulse and sense of direction, could feel the hairs on the backs of their necks standing up.

Phillip flexed a clench on the wheel as Foxy pressed the top-flat of her hook into one ear, and her palm into the other, constantly keeping up the stereotypical sing-song blotch to tune out the Mangle's annoying commentary.

If that wasn't bad enough, said train wreck was drabbling out a nonsensical pattern of varying-toned 'Foxy!'s like crazy.

It was absolutely extraordinary how fast these shows could happen.

"Alright... Guys... Please stop,"

"LA LA LA LA-!"

"FOOOOOXXXXYYYY-!"

It was also absolutely degrading on how little power he had sometimes to pull down the curtain.

"Guys..."

"FOXY SMELLS LIKE HAPPY TIME STILL! FOXXXXYYY!"

"LA LA LA-" At the moment of finished statement among the Mangle's rant, Foxy grew still, her arms lowered, and her fist trembled in a tight grip of itself. "-YOU. ARE. DEAD!"

"PHILLY-KINS, HELP!"

"Guys can you please, PLEASE, just pipe-down...?"

"I'm gonna strangle you! Then I'm gonna kick the bolts out of you! THEN I'M GONNA BURY YOU IN PHILLIP'S YARD!"

"Impending murder! PHILLY! HELP!"

"ALRIGHT, THAT'S ENOUGH-!"

**_CRK! _**

Phillip was about to actually join the screaming match, and, by the amount of anger he'd built up in the last few span of seconds, by all means he would have screeched even FOXY into submission.

But at that moment, the car jerked, something crunched metallically, the entire interior jolted forwards, and ended the Mickey-Mouse operation taking place inches from him at the wheel. Foxy yipped in surprise, Mangle let loose a shriek and vanished under the bottom of Phil's chair.

His backside shifted with the dispersed mass now under the belly of his seat, and the poor security guard just froze like a block of ice, his teeth clenched shut, eyes bulged, his knuckles ached from the whitening grip they strangled the steering wheel with.

The rain outside continued to dribble, despite the suddenness of turns of events.

Phillip was stone still, and his animatronic companion in the passenger side slowly sat to her full height to draw glares from the windshield, to the human.

Her jaw flexed once, shut when he slowly looked at her, teeth still bore in a hideous bite that refused to subside.

Sheepishly, there was a shrug.

"Oops." She squeaked.

Phillip pried his hands off the wheel with a brief tug, than spiraled to jab his wire-locked face back at Mangle, who shivered like a startled wiener-dog would after narrowly dodging a falling masonry brick, from under his seat.

She waved a foot, and all he could do was muster a groan as his face unlocked, and he felt his nerves drain a bit.

"I swear on my life, my insurance is going to SKYROCKET..."

He unbuckled his belt, and unlatched the lock on his door.

When Foxy went to fiddle with her own belt, his finger shot out, jabbed in her direction.

"DON'T. MOVE."

She puffed her chops up and let the belt go with a raised paw for ceasefire.

"I'll. Be. Right back..."

He didn't care about the rain all of a sudden, so he stepped out into the misting drizzle, onto the pavement of the sidestreet that was not to far from his home.

Keeping the door open, he armed back inside and clicked the HAZARD button on his dashboard, ignored the apologetic frown from Foxy, and clacked the door shut to inch towards the hood.

The mist was lit in reds and yellows in a blinking pattern as his headlights broadcasted an emergency stop to any possible passerby, not of course, that Phil was really concerned with other drivers happening down his lonely street.

It was just courteous he supposed.

Hopefully he didn't hit a deer or something, because THAT, wasn't exactly courteous.

A few bad scenarios besides a deer flipped through his mind as he peeked over the front of the car, and, a few seconds prior, he would have dismissed the paranoia, but kept himself firmly peeked for trouble.

So, luckily, Phillip kept himself peeked at that instance.

From beneath the left driver's wheel, a clenching metal hand whined in a static burst of drabbled noise, it wrapped its electronic digits around the startled human's ankle, and tugged.

Phillip cursed and fell onto the wet road with a mist of water, his clothes now soaked, he fumbled with his belt to toss away his sopped shirt and belt, right as a grinning face of evil clawed its way out from the belly of his Ford.

The endoskeleton sported an indent on its chest cavity where he had hit the thing with his vehicle, it garbled whilst it stomach-crawled around the front wheel, and began to stand itself up from under his door's chin.

Phillip thrashed his ankle, tore himself free from the slippery hold, and finished yanking out the aluminum can on his person.

There was a hiss of discharged chemical, and the robotic freak garbled more noise as its eyes turned blaze brown, a hand waved away the rest of the Mace can's cone, and the skeleton clattered back on the pavement.

Still swiping at its own head, Phil snarled, stood to his full height, and stomped on the creature's cranium, smacking its electronic internals about the road in a brilliant skitter of black pebbles.

The arms splayed on the concrete, the static was cut off, but Phillip didn't trust it, nor care, he repeatedly brought his foot down with hurried clacks of his shoe, and within seconds, the endoskeleton's head was pulverized.

A finality of impacts and metal, plastic-like cracks and hisses, silence permeated the misty night, Phillip stared at the body as soot crawled from the smashed base of its neck, and blasted out a held in breath.

He leaned on the door, knelt over and coughed as the adrenaline faded.

These things weren't going to leave them alone until he stopped whatever they were ultimately doing.

"Phillip?! Phillip, what happened?!"

He waved his hand at the dead monster under the Ford as Foxy threw herself around from the passenger side, past the trunk, to stand next to him.

She was hunched as moisture matted her fur, she blinked at the body, and clenched her fist.

"I-I... I don't..."

"Its fine, Fox'... I got it..."

"A-Are you alright...?"

"I'm fine. Just freaked me out..."

"Phillip I'm so sorry!" She blubbered out, he felt his world grow claustrophobic as he crushed in a vice-grip of animatronic arms. "-I'm so, so sorry! I almost damn killed you!"

"T-That, w-was on himmm!" He choked. "-C'CAN'T BRETTTHHEEE!"

"S-Sorry! Sorry... I'm sorry..."

She put him down and held her paw and hook over his shoulders, her jaw was trembling.

"Foxy it's fine! Stop, c'mon! It's all good, I got him!"

"N-NO , it's not fine! Me and Mangle... I ALMOST GOT YOU KILLED! AGAIN!"

"That was part of this little job I signed up for, Fox'... I said I'd help all of you. I..." He looked down at the endoskeleton, kicked its ragged stump of a head for good measure. "-I gotta accept the risks."

"Ooh, a vigilant? Risks are indeed part of the picture my boy... They are INDEED."

Their grip relinquished when the very no-man's land around them spoke, Foxy spiraled to view the surrounding street, and Phil snatched his Mace can back up from by his feet.

A aqua-hued fog blanked out several feet around the car, as all that could be made out were the shadows of houses and the woods that enwrapped them, but also, three shadowy, lumbering forms of something less than static.

Phil squinted at the mist, and felt his brow twitch when something nearly seven-feet tall trotted into the general ambient light of the car's hazard blinks.

Forgetting the prior monster, a matted coat of brown fur parted the hazy precipitation about the air, it wrapped around a body large, rounded, packed with layered steel that was visible beneath the organic-mesh that hugged it.

Balled, steel shoulders whined lowly to cross two bulky forearms over a broad, barrel chest. Above so was a face that grinned briefly a set of JAWS, not just fangs like seen on the killer hare or his bud.

And speaking of said, the largest had his lackeys to the right and left.

This, right here, was NOT good.

In the deplorable sense of the word, Freddy looked like someone meeting a foreign business client for the first time, he reached up with a frighteningly bulky, clawed paw, and tipped the little top-hat on his cranium lightly.

"Good day. I assume you are this, PHILLIP, I have heard so much of. The new guard, the fresh meat! Ha ha!"

The animatronic held his arm upwards briefly when one of the shadows, to his left, shivered, literally. A movement you saw insects make in their death throes on a bug-lamp's zapping surface.

"Bah! My manners, Mr. Linn! My name, is Freddy Fazbear, the REAL proprietor of our little establishment in this humble abode."

The bear strode forwards a bit to fasten his tie with two pinched digits per palm, he raised his claws at the two and the car behind them.

"Foxy, girl! Why exactly have you left your place? A bit of rebellion? Sparked by your fleshy friend there?"

"Freddy... If you touch him..."

"Oh dear, we are BEYOND any feasible threats coming from your mouth, girl. Do yourself a favor there, hook-bearer, just-"

"PREEEYYYY!"

Freddy rolled his eyes when his raised arm jolted and shifted violently as a raging, yellow animal swung her limbs about in a crazed flurry towards the human's angle of the pair. Chica tossed and grunted, she howled at one point, and Fredd kept her there like a dog-owner did their overactive mutt.

The bear shoved against the wickedly grinning bird's abdomen, 'tsked' sympathetically, and smiled at the two whilst he enforced a leash of sorts.

"P-PREEYY! PREY!"

"Settle down, dear."

"N-NO-!"

"Chica," He warned, less than a tone of sing-song-likeness in his voice.

"YOU LET BON' KILL! I MUST KILL! I HAVEN'T KILLED IN YEARS!"

"You'll get your turn, dear."

"DON'T YOU KEEP ME FROM HIM!"

"Back off. NOW."

Chica stumbled back with a squawk, there was a metallic crash of flustered hide, she keeled on the street behind the bear with a hiss, holding her gut.

Freddy snarled silently, shaking his used hand, gave off a pop of some bolt as he cricked his neck, reapplied his toothy grin effortlessly.

"Now, Mr. Linn! It has come to my attention of your... Ahem, PARTNERSHIP, with two members of our happy, happy family. Your snooping about, and continued socialization with the old man... Matt, I believe..."

Phil felt a grimace creep across his face as he practically defied overwhelming odds directly in front of him.

After this entire little misadventure. Here he was. The bear. The demonic leader in the flesh.

Much less than to the truest extent, Phillip was quite displeased.

"Matthew and I are going to stop you."

"Pfft," He actually expected a classical villainous reaction, you know, a maniacal bout of laughter, a statement of pity, or even a 'You weak minded fool!' but instead, all the bear did was blow it out his chops, and wave a palm dismissively.

"-I'll save you the rundown, boy. I've lost count of you meatbags that said that too me. What makes you different? Hmm? What makes you think, YOU, can defeat something you cannot comprehend?"

"I don't think, I know."

"Really? You do now?"

"What do you think?"

Foxy watched the arch nemesis of her very existence with narrowed eyes, her hook was raised, she didn't even care about the grin Bonnie was giving her over his boss' right shoulder, nor the wheezes of Chica's hungry fixation on her companion.

She kept her teeth exposed, arms up, it was always how she made the message of rebellion clear.

But now her only friend, her GREATEST friend, was stuck in the midst with her.

At a switch of gears, Fredd raised a furred brow to the human's words, mulled with a hum, and shrugged.

"I don't think anything of it, Mr. Linn. I just wished you understood reality, we're all living beings in the same bubble, we ALL think we're right. I just have numerical superiority with me this fine, fine eve."

Freddy took a step back, and gestured his hand forwards.

"Well, B', take the freak with you, I've said my peace."

Foxy gasped when the two shadows suddenly came to detail, Phillip held the can aloft, and Freddy said a final grouping of words before their world was a blur of hurried movements to save their very lives.

"Remember! RESTRAIN him! Kill her."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20.

Do the Tango.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"A survival technique dating back to the ages of old security is still feasible for use today. If the cameras break, all security offices should have a cabinet containing an assortment of at least two-hundred mouse-traps. _**

******_Let's see the criminals get ANYWHERE when the halls are lined with tiny, snapping killers!"_**

**_-Writ 57 of Surveillance._**

There was such a thing, contrary to popular belief in the falseness of stereotypes, as a 'Pent Up' burst of emotion, and it wasn't always something good that was released upon the crescendo. Sometimes, it wasn't stress, or wants, but actual hate that festered.

This HATE, pure, and boiling, would rot inside someone to the point that when it could be emptied onto another, particularly, if that other was responsible for starting that hate, the subject would fly into a near unstoppable rage.

How did you ward off an attacker that had no care for anyone's well-being? Including their own? In the real world, there was no such thing as a group of people whom had NO fear...

Every human, man or woman, feared SOMETHING...

But these were not humans that were attacking. In words of the yellow-horror, here... She had no desire to preserve anything, and there was no understatement that she existed purely to cause carnage and death.

Seeing as all three of these monsters were agents of evil, there had to be at least one of them that was a hound above all... It was pretty obvious, even MORE than before, that Chica was this pack-dog mentality of sorts.

Phillip Linn understood that he had warded her off once.

But now he also received the message, that he had locked her out through sheer luck. Because now, without any walls or doors in the way, the robotic bird was a tsunami, and she darted straight for him.

He actually would have started to curse Freddy when he saw the bastard step back to watch his little lackeys here, sort out the fight for him.

Yet, keep in mind, it was hard to wag your finger at someone, BEHIND the maniac tumbling in front of you to murder you. You know, it didn't make sense to try and get your point across to the beast-master, BEHIND the BEAST.

Dumb move.

So ole' Phil improvised as best he could.

"PREEEYYYY!"

"OHCRAP-!"

Phillip felt a slight breeze past his legs as he threw himself to the left, and Chica careened past the space he had narrowly tossed himself out of.

The avian monster made a shrill screech of frustration, her limbs swung in a clawing motion for the human she missed, her feet skittered on the road to change her running angle. Unfortunately, the watery surface made the pavement a tad slippery, not like black ice would surely... But it was enough.

Chica grunted, loudly, in cohesion with a loud, metallic **_THWUMP _**of Phil's poor Ford indenting to the left.

The burly animatronic curved the left-hand passenger door into the cabin of the car with a heavy shoulder-impact, the vehicle lurched on the street, and the wheel facing the point of assault thudded as it was lifted off of the road, and fell back down.

Phillip himself had just sat back up from the wet concrete to watch with a splayed jaw.

"Oh... For the love of god... WHAT DO YOU FREAKS HAVE AGAINST MY CAR?!"

His argument might have persisted against his yellow enemy, however, the sounds of struggled grunts, metal lurches, and clacking of clawed feet on the street, made it entirely, bluntly, stupid to continue.

He shot his view to his right, where it turned out, that the reason TWO animatronics weren't tearing at him, was because Foxy had tangled up the hare of death.

His newest friend looked... Vicious, really.

Her jaws were locked in a splay of golden and white teeth, her shoulders balled as they supported her locked forearms, her elbows bent back, and the base of her spine arched in the war of strength she locked in with Bonnie.

The rabbit's own limbs quaked as he struggled to shove into the vulpine, both of their claws, and one hook, twisted in the other's, Foxy's leg made a groaning sound, like what you would hear from a stressed, steel pylon, before she fell to a single knee on the street.

Bonnie pressed the advantage, and loomed over her upraised head.

"This- Just- keeps getting- MORE entertaining, eh?" He rumbled between stressful pushes. "-I'll just- RIP these off- And I'll kill ya quick then-!"

"Then- You woke up, 'Bon!"

The rabbit made a bark when his opponent swung her clasping paw, and hook, outwards from the engagement, her forehead made a ludicrously loud **_CLANG _** as she butted Bonnie's ugly mug when gravity pulled him forwards, and the rabbit reeled back with a claw wrapped around his jaw.

Foxy spit on the road, and reassumed her combat stance, legs spread, knees partially indented, arms up, like she had done for years.

Bonnie twisted his fingers, reattaching his recently repaired mandible with a grouping of clinks, a bolt skittered somewhere near his feet.

"Damn it you sycophant... I just fixed that..."

"Fix this, you drainage pipe,"

Foxy dashed across the distance she had made from him, ducked beneath an arcing purple fist that, if he had hit his mark, would have decked her in the side of her head. Her hook came upwards, the top curve's sharp girth drew sparks from the connected uppercut landed on her target's chin.

The larger animatronic released a curse, and stumbled back farther into the street's center as his rival fox kept her distance by a few steps.

"-I'm gonna rip out your lungs, and reapply them up your ass!"

"Piece of TIN!"

"Waste of scrap!"

"Ape-loving, stupid whore!"

Phillip almost got up to help her when she vanished in a flurry of purple onto the pavement, the two animatronics tumbling in a barbaric fist-fighting, wrestling match.

He stood quickly, snatched up the mace can, that, amazingly, was lying directly next to where he had been forced to dodge the screaming poultry.

Grinning briefly at his luck, he flipped the can's firing nozzle open again, and managed a single step before he heard yet another scream emanate from the direction of his car. He spiraled to watch Chica roll off of the ground, leap to her clawed feet, and sprint.

A yellow wall covered the distance towards him with a rapid succession of stomping heels, he yelped in surprise, and sprayed a cone of the bear mace as he stumbled.

Phil landed on the seat of his pants, felt one of Chica's nailed toes kick aside his ankle, he watched, teeth still clenched, as the avian screamed repeatedly, holding her face with both of her claws. The animatronic swept and batted herself, and the human raised his lower lip.

Looking down at the can again, he flipped it in his grasp, and shakily stood up from the ground.

"Huh... Dead eye, eh?" He chuckled. "Headshot! WOO!"

"DAMN ANIMAL! STAY STILL! BLOOOD!"

"Oh shit on a stick..."

As quick as Chica had been blinded by the chemical, her wild, now reddened, eyes curled back to view him over her hunched shoulder, she uncurled from the tumble she'd been forced into, and, AGAIN, came running.

This time, when Phil buckled, readied himself for the roll, and actually DID throw himself out of the way, Chica's claw lashed out, wrapped around his flailing right ankle, and dragged him through the air, opposite of his original direction.

Phillip cried out as the deranged freak brought him back around, and threw him in front of her onto the road, leaving the security guard to impact the pavement once, and roll thrice before coming to a sprawled out halt.

His vision swam, and he felt horribly dizzy, his hip wasn't feeling so hot either.

"BlaGH..." Was all he managed to sputter. "-Ou-Ouch..."

"PREY!"

"O-Ohhh,COMEON!"

Chica sprinted over, hung above the prone human, and descended her claws downwards to start on his leg, which, of course, was only the beginning of whatever torture she had in mind.

Phillip hadn't really experienced an INJURY, per say, throughout the whole time of this misadventure, so, pain wasn't something that had cut a deal too him.

That all changed when his ankle flared.

Phil hadn't gotten hurt, nor SCREAMED, throughout the entirety here, but that changed when Chica's nails dug into his leg.

The avian watched with bore fangs as warmth cascaded lightly down her claws, the human squirmed, and the fabric on his jeans tore, and then dampened.

Of course, the horror all ended when Chica vanished in a blur of disturbed air, tinged metallically blue, and rolled across the pavement in a series of screeches and grunts.

Phil curled his leg back, cried out again when he flexed the muscles, stared in silent grieving as four holes were evident in the girth of his right pants' leg. Wondering what had saved him, he looked upwards as Chica tossed off an actual car door that was on top of her.

Whilst the maniac attempted to stand back up, Phillip noticed the blue, scratched and dirtied paint that made the door's coat, and spun his vision back to his Ford.

His hunch was proven correct as a group of pipe limbs flung out from the empty hole in his car's left passenger side, where the door USED to be latched, and curled around the bent frames of the vehicle. The Mangle tugged herself out of the cabin, her teeth looked sharper, and there was no violent tint in her emptied eye socket.

Phillip put his leg down, clenched his teeth, and shimmied across the pavement to grab up his mace can again.

Mangle made a shrieking sound, catapulted from Phillip's car, she hurled a foot over where he lay, and rolled down the pavement like a tumbleweed of tentacle limbs. Chica never saw the clanging mess when she shoved the door off of her chest, and flattened her palms to stand up from the road.

Once more, the avian was felled in a tornado of whirling fists and feet, Mangle's chops sneered in a victual of anger.

"-H-Holy crap... Not good, NOT GOOD..." Phillip muttered to no one in particular, looking at his wounded leg hopelessly.

In the backdrop, Foxy brought her legs in a double upwards thrust to knock the rabbit away from their interlocked wrestle.

Bonnie barked, flew upwards, and landed in a clamber of metal on his feet, growled whilst his opponent flipped herself to a nimble stand, her tail swaying in russet-colored swings.

"You hit like an angry toddler..."

"Me and the bear are gonna END you..."

"Shut the hell up, crony."

They began to circle each other again, and, despite the fight lacking any sign of stopping, little did ANY combatant on this field notice, the wounded human begin to drag himself towards the hazard-light blinking car that had been used as both a move stop, AND a projectile.

As Phillip hatched an idea, he reached up, hissed when his leg protested, and unlocked the driver's door, before crawling into the chair, giving off 'Ah!'s and 'Oo!'s when his bloody limb was stowed beneath the dashboard.

"YOU'RE DEAD! YOU'RE F-!"

Chica couldn't even finish her sentence as three balled fists came down in successive arcs, flattening her compressed head into a pulverized mess.

Mangle's darker face watched with a hateful grin of shown, white daggers. Multiple pipes tied the avian up and trapped her on the street.

"These are for the words all those years ago, precious!"

**_WHUMP _**

**_CLACK_**

**_CLACK_**

"THESE are for hurting me when I said for you too STOP!"

**_CLACK _**

**_CLACK _**

**_CLACK _**

"AND THESE, are because I don't plan on stopping, until you're an OIL-SLICKED PILE OF SCRAP!"

**_WHUMP _**

**_CLACK_**

**_CLING_**

"HAHA! Yeeaaahhhhh, BITCH!"

Mangle, or rather, whatever was USING Mangle, to attempt such a bludgeoning, was so transfixed on pummeling the avian's head, that she never saw two fat palms raise up on either side of the mounting.

Chica hacked and sputtered, her fists came together on either side of Mangle's head with two deafening clangs of dented metal, the vulpine yipped and flung herself backwards, a tangling mess of pipes that spun away from the rising monster.

The bird swung her head to and fro, threw herself onto stumbling feet, and rolled her beak.

Feeling a disturbance, she reached up and finished yanking out a loose tooth from her outer jaws, flicked it away, and ran at the stunned animatronic she had fended off.

As such, the Mangle had just reared her head back up, shaking it furiously to rid herself of the fuzzy feeling of disorientation.

"BABBLING LITTLE SHIT!"

"OOh, I'll show you, BABBLING!"

Right as the Ford's engine kicked back to life, the dueling pair crashed head-first into each other through a ravaging dual charges, there was a metallic impact, their bodies crashed to the street.

Phillip watched as both of his friends fought bitterly with enemies they had made long before he had entered the picture, and at that moment, for the first time, besides OTHER things... Especially his hurt leg...

He felt dread. A great, big old pit of DREAD.

It didn't help that now, the THIRD of the murderers was reentering the fray.

Phillip pressed his foot into the gas pedal.

"Imbeciles, I wind up having to do EVERYTHING myself..."

Foxy's head vanished underneath Bonnie's swinging fist, her clavicle and top torso curved eastwards to brush past a similar thrust from a purple claw. She returned the missed fury with a swipe from her hook, drawing a path of sparks across the hare's gut.

The animatronic rabbit yelled in pain, stumbled backwards, and was literally thrown in a half-stand before Freddy when Foxy finished the moveset with a sidewind.

Her fist came from the right, and clocked Bonnie in the temple, giving off an all-too-familiar **_SPROIIING _**noise. He hissed from the hit, feet struggling to keep up from the speed of the assault, poor Bonnie ended up dancing in a backward circle to block Freddy's path.

"Shit..." The rabbit muttered, toying with the mesh eye that now hung via copper-colored cables from the dented hole in his head.

"Step aside, B'," Freddy chuckled, grabbing the hare by his left shoulder, and tossing him to the ground a few inches away. "-You're mine, girl."

"Bring it on, you thug..." Foxy grumbled, swaying lightly from the effort of the engagement, her arms formed up.

"THUG, she says... Poor lass," The bear snickered. "I prefer, ARTIST, if I do say so myself."

"Fucking freak."

"Oo, that stung, Foxy! How DARE you? Hmm?"

He walked up to her with no consideration to the possibility of her lashing out, there was a confidence that remained undaunted whilst he strolled towards his opponent, and, shockingly, it was his OPPONENT that fared worse.

Foxy sidestepped, swung her hook, and Fredd removed the threat by jerking his shoulder backwards, letting the singing metal arc into the air he left.

She never was given a second attack attempt, for his opposite paw reared after the dodge, Foxy's chest bloomed in pain when a loud **_CLACK _**emitted from the most powerful backhand she had ever been hit with, sent her flying.

Her limbs flailed in the travel, then she coughed up lost air when her back compressed to the street. There was no time to stand before Freddy was walking to her again.

"Don't you see, after, what? Twenty years? Thirty? C'mon, Foxy, honey! I can't be beaten! I. CAN'T. BE BEATEN. This is mutual knowledge, admit it."

"Mutual..." She scoffed, scrambling backwards on the pavement. "-You believe in cockiness?"

"I believe in greater powers, and the subsidiaries that can usurp them if they get lazy. Foxy, I haven't gone lazy. I never will."

"FOX'! GET IN!"

"Oh for God's sake-"

**_THUMP!_**

Freddy flew to the left in a great thud of impacted steel, his form tumbled onto the pavement several feet away, and Phillip's car earned yet another dent in the frontal bumper.

Shaking his head from the brunt of the impact, Phillip waved his hand for the passenger side as Foxy stumbled to a stand, and hurried around the hood to reach the opposite door. The second she tugged it open and crawled in, Phil gunned his Ford again.

Coming to the second engagement of the fight, Mangle had just swung off of the dazed avian she had been dueling for half the slug-fest, she looked like a swaying drunk from the effort, damage, and violet tinge slowly returning to her socket.

A few seconds more, and she might not have slithered away from that fight.

However, Phillip's car screeched on the road, the passenger side flew past, and so did Foxy's paw as it clenched around a wad of Mangle's tentacles and dragged her with the moving vehicle.

"HOLD HER! We're almost out of here!"

"J-Just keep hitting the pedal, Phillip!"

"FoooOOOXXXXYYYYYyyy, WHHhhyyyyyyYY Aaarreee WWeeee FLYIINNNGGG?!"

She dragged the rest of her whacked friend into the car, and threw her into the back seat right as the beaten up Ford swerved down the nearest turn, and effectively stole from the murderous trio, their newest victory.

So did the street become quiet and uneventful once more, and Chica picked herself up off of the concrete. She heaved heavily, clenching her claws at thin air.

"T-they... Got away. G-Got away."

She rambled to herself lowly, earning a sneer from Bonnie as he finished pushing his eye back in its socket.

"You fools can't even end her when she's outnumbered." Freddy sighed, completely unfazed by the fact he'd been hit by the security guard's car, he stroked his chin and dusted off his bowtie with the opposite paw.

"You didn't even FIGHT her, you piece of crap..." Bonnie commented. "-We're the shield now, eh, bear-boy?"

"No, merely an asset." He commented lowly. "-Well, attacking the human's home won't get us their heads, in fact, that might kill one of us."

"With luck..." The rabbit sneered. "-I'm heading back with or without you two... You're choice..."

-0-0-0-0-0-

There wasn't really any thought as he did his part of the retreat. He just kept his foot pressed, hands locked in an iron grip on the wheel before him, jaws, fingers and toes clenched, and his leg kept flaring.

That was another problem that needed immediate attention. But first he needed to get all of them inside.

Now, INSIDE, really meant two or three options...

One, probably to most people, the REASONABLE option, was to go to a hospital and get his mauled leg treated. Yet there was a big dilemma with seeking out medical attention... First off, how did you explain the animal-like injuries inflicted on you, AND the two walking robots behind you?

He doubted there was any possibility of that going smoothly.

Second, he could drive back to Matthew's house, and seek help, and protection, there. Yet that meant going through the same roads the three monsters ambushed them on.

That was a no-no...

Third, bring them all back to his house, get some painkillers, medical wrap, clean the wounds, and seal them up while preparing his place of living for a possible night-defense.

It was crude, and it was only acceptable because of the specifics here.

Whilst he drove through stop signs, the missing passenger door hissed and wetly tapped as the misty rain was let inside the car, the elements making him shiver slightly alongside his already soaked clothes and body.

In the seat next to him, Foxy, the poor animatronic that had taken on two of the freaks, including the bear, more bravely than he could have ever hoped too, wrapped her arms over her chest with a small quake wracking her form.

He noticed how drenched she was as well, and it wasn't any help on his already shot nerves.

Checking the rear-view mirror, Mangle huddled inside her own coils on the back seat farthest from the hole in the Ford's flank, water dripped off of her head profusely, she saw Phillip staring at her briefly, and waved weakly with a foot.

Phil was less disturbed by the commonality of her usual obliviousness, but by the fact she kept a frown on whilst doing it.

"-P-Phillip... Are you alright?" Foxy stuttered. "-I can't believe... W-we got out of that..."

"I'M FINE."

Phil chastised himself for being unable to unclench his teeth when he hissed out his response. Foxy stopped quaking and looked at him, she blinked, and tested the air with bobs of her nose.

"Phillip?"

"IT'S-Uhm, it's nothing."

"PHILLIP."

"I said I'm good-AGH-Fox'."

"You're hurt."

"No I'm-"

"Son of a bitch, you're hurt! Where are you hurt? Stop this thing now, WHERE ARE YOU HURT?"

"We're home, Foxy... I'm fine..."

The Ford bucked lastly as the headlights illuminated the white paint of Phillip's garage door, he pulled back the shift to PARK, fumbled with the door, and tossed it open with a hiss of discomfort.

He draped his leg out the side of the car, lightly put it into contact with the pavement, and began to limp away from the driver's side. Foxy of course was scrambling to get out of the passenger side, and Mangle just weakly crawled out of the door-absent hole in the car's side.

"Where are you hurt?! Show me!"

"Alright, look, YES, I got banged up a little, but I need to get inside to fix it-"

Phil was cut off when Foxy gave off an intake of breath that he had never heard from her before. He stopped on his trek to the front door, turned to her as he supported himself on a lean to the side of the house.

Foxy was staring at his hurt leg, her paw was being chewed in her shivering chops, and her hook was right beside it. Her eyes sort of bugged, and she couldn't get her voice to work.

Behind her, Mangle observed the damage silently as she peaked over her taller friend's ankles.

"P-Phillip-I-I don't..."

"Fox' I'll fix myself up... Just give me time..."

"I-I'm s-so sorry-! I-!"

"IT. WAS NOT. YOUR FAULT." He said a bit more forcibly then he wanted as he limped to the door, and pulled his keys out from his wet pocket. "-We just got-AGH-Damn it... We just got attacked by all three of them, Fox'... I think we got very lucky."

The door squeaked open, and he stumbled into his foyer a dripping mess.

Phillip coughed when the lights that were still on in his home gave him a better view of his limb. He stroked the fabric, his eyes drawing down the holes punched there, and the red that grew around them like evil-appearing suns.

"-I-I have supplies in the bathroom... F-Fox' j-just close the door, please?"

Phillip started to reach around his belly as Foxy rushed Mangle inside the house, and slammed the front door shut before clicking the little wheel that she knew her friend used to lock the entry.

She went to tell Mangle to stay put when there was a wet flop on the drenched rug that lined from the front entrance to the beginning of the kitchen, and she jumped in a startle to the human's sopping shirt flopping at her feet.

She gulped, watching the half-exposed young man limp up the stairs, using one palm to clench the hand railing, and another to work on his belt.

Mangle, throughout it all, fiddled with a set of her hands and kept a stare on the floor.

"God-DAMN-!"

A heavy thud came from the upper floor when Phillip's leg nearly made him careen down the hallyway, he barely stopped himself on the frame to his facilities.

"Phillip, let me help! Please!"

"Foxy, I got it-!"

He opened the door when the rapid series of stomping heels rampaged up his stairwell, and before the poor human knew what was happening, there was a very angry-looking animatronic fox finishing her practical leap to the second floor in his direction.

She grabbed his shoulder and shoved him lightly despite the protests.

"I'm. Helping." She gritted her fangs. "Tell me. What. To do."

"I fix you, you fix me, huh?" He sighed. "-You see the cabinet? Above the sink? Get the big white box with the red cross on it..."

Phillip hissed once more as he sat on the rim of his bath tub, pushing away the shower curtain when it grazed on his left flank.

Foxy kept muttering about the red cross as she tore open all four doors on the mirrored pantry, chucked a few bottles and spare cups out of the way, and fumbled with the great white square she yanked out of the farthest holding.

She slipped off the clamps at the top and opened the container next to the security guard on the rim of the tub.

"O-Okay, now what?" She sounded panicked, and she gestured to the internals of the box quickly. "-What do I do?"

"-Hand me the wrap... That one, YEP..."

She shoved the gauze wrap into his right hand, and observed when he set about unrolling enough of it to tight off his thigh from the rest of his waist.

He put the material aside, and chucked the wrap back into the box.

"-Alright... Fox', this is gonna... REALLY be awkward... But I need you to listen to me..."

"I don't care how bad it is, tell me."

"-I... Uhm..."

"HURRY UP! There's no time for drama you STUPID HUMAN!"

No one could blame him for jumping at her sudden bark, but the way her face was twisted in grief, anger, and fear all at the same time, silenced any comeback he might have brewed up.

Phillip gathered his voice and tried again.

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry!" Foxy relented before he speak. "-I'm sorry I yelled... I'm sorry..."

"It's fine. But I need you to help me take my pants off."

"..."

Well, people could blurt things out in emergencies, right?

Phillip rolled his eyes when Foxy just stared at him with a bewildered expression, her jaw tight, and her paw still hovering over the medical kit where she awaited for an order previously.

She blinked and her eye-patch flicked up with a click of plastic.

"Oh, Phil..." She groaned.

"I know... It's WEIRD, but, Fox', I have to stop the blood loss..."

Foxy had a lot of self doubt, but even she was surprised at how fast she put aside her own emotional tribulations when her friend said that.

The moment it was reminded that he could become even MORE hurt than he already was if she screwed up, it was indeed, action time.

Still, she swallowed, her paw was quaking as she grabbed the opposite sleeve of linen from the one he held, and waited for him to give her the go to start pulling. At least to somewhat of her relief, she understood it wasn't comfy for him either.

He had a conflicted look of mortification beneath the twist of pain, she could read it.

But either way, they both tugged and Phil's pale, fleshy human-legs dropped out, and both of them took a moment to gawk at the damage itself.

Five, bloody gapes in his skin leaked red, two of them a tad profusely, and it was a miracle, that, yes, it looked HORRIBLE at first, that Phil understood the wounds could have been MUCH, much worse than this.

Even though he thanked God in his mind for the luck, he still had to shake himself to bring back reality.

He licked his lips and looked at his animatronic friend.

Remembering the prior discussions, she had no tear ducts, but if Foxy was entirely organic, there was no question that with the shock on her face, she would have been hysterical right now.

He reached up, tensing at the fact he was only in his underwear and socks before her, and drew his fingers by her right cheek-bone.

"Hey... C'mon, Foxy... I need you to hand me some more stuff, concentrate on me, not THAT..." He said. "Look at my face, not the blood."

"Uhm-I-O-Okay... I... Okay."

"You see the wrap of gauze?"

"The... The what-?"

"The gauze."

"Y-YES! Yes..."

"Tear off a strip like I just did, like this-" He held up the strip he had previously torn off. "-Tie one around each hole... I'm gonna section my leg off."

"I-I... Okay... OKAY! I'll do it..."

The material was unrolled as Foxy used her hook like a toilet paper holder, sticking the gauze' thickness into the loop, her fingers missed the flap a few times with each strip she began to make. Phillip managed to put aside his cringed facial expression in wonder at how fast she worked when it was needed.

Really, no matter what anyone said, least of all herself, when she felt down, Foxy was a trooper. Cheesy sounding, yeah, but who else could go through so much and run like a well oiled machine still? No pun intended.

With shaky hands he made sure the loop around the waist-joint connection of his thigh to his hip was tight, and pulled out a spray canister from the box, read the label with dread, closed his eyes and flicked off the cap.

He blew out a breath, aimed at a hole, and sprayed.

"GAHG! DAMN IT!"

"What happened?! What'd I do?! Did I make it worse-?!"

"No-no! I... OW... I have to disinfect these things..." He continued to swear whilst waving his hand at the gash to air-dry it. "Woo... WOO... Ugh, hand me that wipe right there."

Foxy put down the strip she had and passed him a wet matt that he then further cringed too whilst stroking away at the hole in his leg.

"Oh man... This hurts..."

"When do I wrap it, Phillip?"

"First, hand me the wash cloth in there, NEXT too where the wipes are... Yep."

"Okay, now what?"

"Hold on..."

Phillip dabbed away the rest of the slick debris, rubbed the indent in his hide, and nodded at her as he put the cloth inside the tub.

"Alright, you can wrap it..."

"Okay..." She quickly ran the gauze around his leg, her nose twitching as she got closer to his bare skin, she didn't feel as much of the overpowering embarrassment she would normally have if the situation were less... Stress inducing, she supposed...

"Now what?" She asked after biting down on the linen, and tying it in a finished hug around his thigh.

"We repeat the process..."

"How... Many...?"

"However many punctures that bitch of a KFC-Wannabe made..."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21.

When All's Said and Done.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"This page is blank. Go outside or read a book, fresh air is the ultimate resource for a security worker! Which... Now makes this page not so blank._**

******_Oops."_**

**_-Writ 60 of Surveillance._**

Maybe there was a handfull. He was being generous with the number, but indeed, MAYBE, a handfull of times in his young life, where he had experienced the muscle-numbing, bone chilling, fire flaring caress of pain.

And not just pain you got when you stubbed your toe, or got a bad paper cut, or even when you fell down the stairs or out of bed in the morning trying to turn off your alarm clock.

No, not at all. Those things were nothing.

This was pain you got when a part of you bloomed like a splayed, crimson rose. This was pain when someone, or something, tried to play 'Carve the Jack-o-Lantern' with a bodily section of your very person.

You felt air form a breeze on rawness.

It was horrible, really, it was grueling, fixable albeit, but nevertheless, it was a terrible experience that sometimes stayed with you in the back of your memories for a long, LONG time.

There was a repeating pattern, like he had promised, for every gash he had been dealt, and each pattern, he barked in heated hurt.

At one point, it had become bad enough that he keeled over the tub and vomited into the sink as his friend had just prepared another wrap, and she thought he had just gone into a worse condition due to her lack of ever SEEING a human lose their lunch.

Phillip had spat a final time, and assured her it was normal for people who were in bad ways.

So they finished cleaning and dressing the last hole dealt into the hide of his leg, observed their medical handiwork, and sat silent whilst Phillip popped two pain pills into his mouth from a bottle in the mirror pantry.

They rolled around for a bit before he swallowed them, leant back to compress on the other side of the tub, and stared at the ceiling for a good while.

Foxy of course didn't take her eyes off of him, she fiddled with her hook, went to speak, and wound up remaining silent so many times, she lost count.

This was what people who associated with her had always ended up with... So now, on top of feeling dirty and ugly for so long, now she felt like she had been HEXED as well. It was all too much. Really, even after twenty years of this garbage.

Eventually, she just muffled in her paw, something that sounded like a sob.

Phillip drew his fingers down his jawline.

Again, despite the lack of tears, Foxy hid her face in her paw and hook and made the noise a second, than a third, and fourth time. The bathroom shook a bit when she reclined on her backside and kept the hysterics going silently.

The young man sat up, and whether it was by exhaustion, wearing-down adrenaline, or just discomfort from his screaming leg, he reached an incentive to lack any want to expend effort like he normally did here.

He was just... Really done for today. You know, nearly being murdered had its own way of doing that to people.

But like he had said before the fateful encounter...

'I have to accept the risks...'

His own words buzzed in his head as he watched his new companion have a fit on the floor of his home's facilities.

The vulpine's chest heaved in great arcs before draining in bobbing shrinks of her musculature, she kept the volume down with the girth of her paw, and shielded her face.

"F-Fox'... Foxy, don't... Don't cry, c'mon..."

"-I-I'll cry if I want too!" She snorted. "-You got hurt! I swore I wouldn't let you GET HURT!"

"Foxy, I did say there were risks, and that I had to accept them..."

"-I DON'T CARE! I-JUST-C-CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!"

Her speech died away in muffled sobs.

Phil crinkled his fingers and sighed again.

He had the feelings of a million different moments throughout this conundrum of a mission sail through his head all at once, he felt dazed.

The wall in front of the tub seemed so tempting, actually, to just let Foxy cry it out, let his mind filter it out, and just memorize the cracks of the blue tiles like a puzzle he would read in children's books at the age of six...

But in the end he knew that wouldn't help the situation, and in fact, it might leave such negative energy to emotionally scar one of them, or at worst, BOTH of them.

Looking back at Foxy gave him a tsunami of conflicted feelings that had been badgering him for a week, he saw her wet, russet fur, her limbs, her feet, a paw and a half-rusty hook, her draped ears over a hidden, yet scrunched up face...

Then he felt something conflicted, shift in power struggle. At that moment, no joke. He wasn't entirely sure for a good minute, but right when the thoughts of 'That crap you watched in soap-operas!' shot into his mind, he realized the beauty of first-sight.

How the eyes could just open up at a moment's notice, or LACK of notice, rather, when they were already open, but not truly. It was hard to elaborate on.

Besides, how did you ELABORATE, on a mess like this?

Who COULD elaborate? By this point, who would WANT too?

Grazing his vision over the animatronic again, he noticed things that his mind refused to paint a picture of, and amid all the pain and turmoil both of them were currently fighting through, he saw... Things that were feminine.

The whole process of 'Non-humanity' and 'Female, but, AGAIN, not human' swirled in his head.

And in the end, he told both sides to screw off, and go scratch.

"Foxy, please, stop crying."

"N-NO..."

"Foxy..."

"WHAT?! W-WHAT?"

"Come here..."

It was also strange, because she must have been rewinding this soup of thoughts just like he was.

She scooted off the center of the bathroom floor with no trouble, no second considerations, just like he had told her to come over to his position.

Phil shuffled his leg out of the way for Foxy to take a crouched seat in front of the ledge he sat atop, she faced him, and chose to hide her face still in his skinny, frail chest. Expectably, he felt out of place with the soft outer feel of her head and face on his bare skin, he clammed up.

Yet like someone threw off the training wheels of a bike, her hide became less alien by the second, his hands returned from their splay on either side of him, and found their places on her balled, furred shoulders.

He rubbed idly, supported his chin on the top of her head between her ears.

"Foxy, calm down, it's okay."

"I-It's NOT..." She muffled.

"It is. I will heal. You and Mangle are fine, we warded off an attack no one else has before us."

"W-What's the POINT, ANYWAY?"

"The point is, we're going to fight back and WIN. We're going to stop them from hurting anyone ever again. We're going to let you live a life outside of that cesspool... And I'm going to make sure you're happy."

"H-HOW? H-Huh?"

"I said we'd figure something out..."

"P-Phillip... I know... I know I'm i-impatient with this..." Her sobs were gradually fading as she kept talking into his clavicle. "-B-but there's a part of me t-that just wants you to figure i-it out already..."

"Really..."

"REALLY..."

"How so?" He reached down to cup beneath her chin with his hands. "-Look at me. How so?"

The fox's eyes clicked open, her paw came up and snatched her patch up, she grumbled when it fell down again, reached back, and tore the thing off with a clack of plastic.

He chuckled lowly as she put it down on the floor, and looked at him with her angular face, her left ear craned at him, and her paw began to draw up and down on his left forearm.

"-Phil..." She muttered, her head turning bright red. "Y-You know how I feel... I-I'm not exactly up for... Breaking it down, right now..."

"I don't want you to break it down," He snickered. "-I want you to tell me, what your perfect friend could do, to make you perfectly happy. Tell me what you dream of. I wanna here it."

"H-Huh?"

"You said on Matt's porch, that you wanted something that enjoyed you back. Tell me every detail based on those words."

Foxy blinked, her mandible flexed, her shoulders rolled. By the second, her upset demeanor was being flooded with that flustered hue she got whenever something like this, something sensuous, happened.

She stuttered, and stroked his arm slower.

"Phillip... I... I'm not sure this is the time..."

"Give me a better time then," He replied scoffing. "-What if there ISN'T another time? What if we, and the ole' geezer don't last much longer?"

"That's not even FUNNY, you ass..."

"-Wasn't meant to be, Fox'."

"... I... Phil..."

"Tell me. Come on."

The animatronic didn't give a response briefly, gave a drawn out huff, and tapped her fingers on his arm lightly.

"... I want something..." She closed her eyes briefly, leaned closer. "- I want SOMEONE..."

"Mmhmm-?"

"-Don't rush me, you prude..."

"Sorry," He laughed lowly. "-Take your time..."

"I want someone... Who can tell me things that make me feel wonderful, and who I can say things too, to make THEM feel wonderful..."

"Uh-huh."

"I want someone that strives to make me feel joy... And that I strive to make them feel joy..."

"Yep."

"... Phillip...?"

"Mmmmm?"

"Uhm... You're... Uh, you're bleeding on my chest-wrap."

His brow indented, and he leaned back a bit to see one of the wraps on his leg had gone a tad loose, and there was now a small dull-red stain on Foxy's dark-colored linen cover that had been obscuring her chest for a week.

She sighed at the interruption as Phillip snatched up the cloth from the tub behind him with a grunt, wiped around his dressing, tightened it, then flipped the small towel on the unused end, and dabbed at the blotch on her.

She hummed at his touch, and pushed his hand away lightly, before outright taking the cloth out of his hand, and throwing it back where it came from behind him.

"-Well I WAS gonna get that," He sniggered.

"Phillip,"

"Yeah?"

"I want someone who I can feel, and who can feel me... I want to touch, be touched, and know that to them, I look nice... Not ugly... I want someone to tell me I'm beautiful, and to help me be beautiful again..."

"Sounds like an awesome dude." He joked. "-We could try speed-dating?"

"That," She sat upwards to line her longer face to his. "-Is not even FUNNY, you ass..."

"Why so?"

"Because,"

"Because?"

He felt a breeze from her chops descend on his chin, the hairs on him stood upright at the very closeness of her presence.

Foxy blinked shyly, she forced herself to put aside the horrible, horrible mess that had previously occurred, the saddened emotions that had plagued her, AND him.

"Because even with only a week, I'm happy with you..." She clenched his hand in her paw, her shoulders came together as she angled closer, her head, without prior knowledge, almost automatically turned to the right, and Phil opposite. "-I strive for you to be happy..."

"I don't have time to serenade similar, madam?" He muttered comically.

"No." She teased. "Because I want that someone, to be YOU."

Well, Phil did at one point expected that if he ever found himself like this, like THIS, indeed, that he would have been vomiting, and a repulsed wreck.

But in the end, who the hell could deny those not-human chops what was inevitably going to placate them since he started talking to their holder? Honestly, could any observer to this adventure, have ANY doubt to the obvious conclusion?

If you thought they would stop the bear and his ragtag assortment of freaks, WITHOUT finding the chemical connection, you were either blind, or... Well, probably just blind.

Yet like stated before, Phillip thought he'd GO blind if he found himself doing this.

But Phillip meshed with her just fine. No blindness here.

In fact, despite the tasteless tissue of a partially-robotic organism, he found that when the outer connection of lips parted, that the duel of tongues wasn't all that bad either.

Foxy's lower jaw parted, her eyes draped in a drunken state, she felt a weight that had been stuck in her for as long as she could remember, float away and out the room's window whilst she perceived a foreign invader in her oral cavity.

Oxygen was not needed for a time, just, connecting with the fleshy little creature in front of her. All Foxy wanted to do was touch her human companion, and she wanted him to touch her, so, she did, and let him do exactly that.

Phillip's body felt cold, than hot as his natural reaction to such contact with another living creature took place, it was strange, out of place almost, yet true to the old saying, nature did find a way. Which was scary, because he'd never heard of another interspecies relation like this ever occurring before.

Oh well, right?

As quickly as the ascension to something lovely happened, Phillip drew back with a deep inhale, and Foxy gasped her own end.

The human display of affection, the 'Kiss' as she had read so many times throughout her internet excursions, happened, and ended within seconds it seemed, even though, deep down, she had never wanted it to stop.

Panting from the dizziness of prolonged lack of air, Phillip reoriented, shifted on the seat he had atop the tub's rim, laughed lightly and patted her back with his hugging forearms.

"Well... Hey, see that? I got over myself! Woo! Kudos, right?"

Foxy smiled at him. Her life felt brighter with such a simple action to some. He was right. They'd get through this bad storm, and there would be something amazing on the other end.

She understood after twenty years.

"Yeah... I'll give you your props," She stated. "-AFTER, you do that again."

"... Did I have a choice?"

"Did you NEED, one?"

"Nnnnyyyoooopppe."

"Alright then, Mr. 'Maybe no time later...' I'll choose for you..."

"No need, I was about too- MMph!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_Do you feel the oppression? The weight? There's nothing too alleviate it now, yes? You don't have a power struggle anymore. The other has gone quiet._**

**_It is only me. Yourself!_**

**_Just listen to it, to me, to yourself! What is the reason for holding it back longer? Why not let the fuels flow, the door here is flimsy, it can't stop you, you are too quick, the others here cannot can't catch you._**

**_Find the enemy. Destroy them._**

Within the depths of mental abyss, only one voice was audible to the senses, and it badgered, nagged, harassed and ridiculed, there was no silencing it after the past hour.

Still she attempted to at least DELAY it, she knew there was no stopping the other half or its influence, she knew it was a part of her, a part of her very mind.

For as long as she could recall it had been present, but dormant and not active.

Now, with old wounds reopened, the doppleganger couldn't resist rearing its ugly face under her synthetics.

**_Find them. Destroy them._**

"Me... I..."

**_Not doing so is not only a disservice to yourself, but the very beings you have grown so attached too._**

"Don't want too."

**_Weakling. You are destroying YOURSELF._**

"Not true... Not talking to you anymore."

**_You think you can lock me away? WEAKLING?_**

"Philly and Foxy are friends. Friends don't mock friends."

Gradually, Mangle's chattering faded, a dark tumor that had been spreading tendrils about her vision, trying to clasp control of her very body, faded like one relieved their back of a great weight.

Around her, two walls, a front door and its hinge, a wet floor and discarded, sopping clothes of a human she had become attached too draped by the foot of a flight of stairs. There was a ceiling lamp that lit the foyer.

Rain drops hissed ever-so lowly outside, and tapped on all nearby windows near silently.

The internal war she had been waging was gone for the moment, the peaceful renditions of Phillip's house was again her reality, and Mangle felt her usual expressions of either extreme happiness or sadness flow away for a relieved mutter.

The floor's chill didn't bother her anymore, she just curled up next to the left wall of the foyer, shivering a little to dispel a splash of moisture from her, as she still had not dried off from the weather outside.

The water clapped in a tiny motion around her, she closed her eyes and sighed heavily.

Mangle had never been worried about someone before, like, WORRIED, worried... Sure, there were instances with Foxy that had given her anxiety, or brief fear, but the little whackjob had never fretted for a friend's continuation in her own life.

Even though her mind was always in a loop of weird little conundrums, Phillip, you know, PHILLY, meant a great deal to her now. He might have found some of her antics a bit annoying, but so did Foxy, and she had been with her for decades...

Phil gave her something NEW to be buddies with. He was fun. He gave her a bright light in a life filled with misunderstood dislike and dismissal, from monstrous creatures that had tried to literally tear her apart with their bare hands...

What would she do with herself if she had gotten that silly human killed?

She didn't know the answer to that.

It was usual for her to be in the dark with intricate things, but Mangle normally did not have horrible tragedies that needed an solution...

Lives never had depended on her.

She was already broken, how the heck could THIS help?

Mangle resulted to hiding her face beneath a few extra coils of the pipe-like limbs that branched from the base of her main body, her ears draped, she suddenly did not care about the moisture clogging her fur and circuits.

She wanted to be left alone, for the first time in all this excitement...

Then there were a few wet footfalls, the puddle of water that made a splotch in front of and under the front door, sloshed silently when someone sat down on the opposite wall she curled too.

Absently, without much knowledge on what to say, Foxy leaned back, snorted some moisture from her fake nose, and blinked at her companion's state of being a heap.

It was terrible, because, she had just pretty much sucked face with a human, of all things, but a human she had grown adoring of in a mess of a quest to stop an evil that had plagued her, her entire life... And she still felt quite depressed.

Foxy drifted, she rolled her jaw to stare at the wall above the other animatronic, so deeply, she never saw said other raise her head to watch expectantly.

"F-Foxy?"

"Hmmm." She hummed, not really registering.

"Foxy... Philly okay?"

"Mmm... W-What?"

"FOXY?!"

Look, Mangle had yipped, cried out, screamed, cheered, and screeched all manner of nonsense and antics throughout the week, and LONG before that... But Foxy had never heard her SHRIEK like that.

Mangle sounded awful, like she was being told of a non-curable, lethal diagnosis for herself, her eyes bugged and her jaw was quivering.

"D-Don't say he gone, Foxy... H-He can't... Be gone..."

"He's not... He isn't gone, Mangle, he's washing up a bit... Uhm..." Foxy shook herself to rid the shell-shock of Mangle's raised voice. "-He'll be a few minutes. We'll go off from there... O-Okay?"

"P-Philly our only friend, Foxy..."

"I know, Mangle... I know..."

"-Me-Me can't win if he and Matty-Kins d-die..."

"What?"

"Fighting, the monsters," Mangle clarified. "-If they get them... Me have no will left..."

"They WON'T get Matt, or Phillip." Foxy said, shifting on her floor-mounted seat. "Phillip's going to stop them. We'll win, Mangle. You have to have... WILL."

The white-colored vulpine blinked and slowly faded to hide herself beneath her coils again, the pipes slithering over themselves in what sounded like slowly dragging lines of aluminum cans.

Mangle let loose a muffled sigh, and shifted to find some form of a better splaying.

Foxy didn't utter anything for her to stop the miserable display, as she herself was pretty tired of all this hate, this fighting against something she had never been able to destroy... She just wanted this to stop, she was done.

Bringing her paw and hook, to respectfully clench, and press, against her shoulders, she massaged her bunched synthetic muscles, grinned suddenly, and gave off a shaky chuckle.

"M-Mangle, you know something?"

"Me not know..."

"I... Uhm... I-I kissed, Phillip."

For a moment, there was nothing more of the conversation apparent, and Foxy only felt the hope drain for a second before Mangle snickered, and she followed en suit.

There was a brief second where they both giggled like school children at such a development, and it made them feel happy again. Foxy laid against the wall with a comedic sigh, and Mangle uncurled to smile at her.

"Me happy, for you Foxxxyyyy..." She stated factually with a laugh.

"Oh, Mangle... I could use some recharge mode... Couldn't you?"

"No sleep to long, Foxy... Wear out battery packs!"

"I HATE being a girl." She mused.

-0-0-0-0-0-

The phone rang several hours into the night later, it managed to blare out three times before a quick, aged hand snatched it from the receiver and clicked the TALK key the moment the number displayed on the ID registered.

"Hello? Hello! Is this you? Jensk?"

Matthew spoke with unkempt anxiousness into the speaker, he waited briefly for a heavy wheeze of static to fade off on the other end.

With haste, his friend sighed and opened his mouth to speak.

"_M-Matthew? It is... It's me._"

"Good God, Jensk, how long it has been..."

"_Too long, Matt... I couldn't... I wasn't strong enough to deal with our fight._"

"No no, that's not true! Jensk, you put up with hell where others had no hope of succeeding... And now you're here again. Or at least, I think-"

"_I'm on my way. Count on that. I'm on Route 65._"

"I'm so glad you're coming back to help us, my friend."

"_I broke my promise that'd stay until the end, and I'm not breaking it again._"

Matthew had a jubilant grin over his face as he stepped over to his bedroom window, flipped the shades open excitedly, and began to stare at his own street in anticipation of his oldest friend arriving again to aid the end of the evils here.

He tapped his free fingers on the window pane impatiently.

"_Matthew... Did our... ALLIES, survive? Are they alright?_"

"W-Who? Foxy?"

"_Don't forget the noisy one," _Jensk chuckled on the other end. "-_What of her?_"

"-Mangle... Y-Yes, uh... Foxy AND Mangle are still here, but, Jensk... I need to tell you about a new person. We have a third member of our group that has proven himself time and again..."

"_You actually found somebody else?_"

"-What, the former officer of the law has no suspicion at first?" Matt snickered. "Right to the identity, hmm?"

"_Matthew I have trusted your judgment, and not once have I regretted it. You say you have let someone in with us, I know you found the right man, or woman, if ever later."_

"That means... A lot to me, Jensk. Just like old times?"

"_Aye. Older times... Who is he?_"

"He is a bright young man. Foxy and Mangle are attached to him like moths to a light at night..."

"_Have the bastards tried to hurt him?_"

"Oh yes. He has evaded them at every corner, been a leader to our animatronic allies... His name is Phillip Linn, I hired him as a security guard, but now he's in a much more important place I'd think... He's brave. I think I have finally found our ideal, final operative to stop these monsters, Jensk."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	22. Chapter 22

**_Hi peeps! So first off, I'd just like to type up a quick thank you for all of the really inspiring Reviews I've received from some of the users who have sent me feedback on my writing, it really is something to read what someone thinks is neat about my written work, and I believe (as far as internet impressions go) that I have been exposed to some really bright people that have a lot of intuitive and intriguing things to say._**

**_I've reached 62,000 views on this one story! So, I know there are authors not just on Fanfiction alone, but other sites that receive a million times more traffic than that, but for a freelance writer who just thought it would be kewl to post a story on a game that, at first, I wasn't really that insanely deep into, I think that is really amazing!_**

**_I'm very happy to have had my work exposed to the amount of people it has been towards already, I believe I'm very lucky to have gotten the readers I have so far, and that I have interested some people enough that they wish to keep up with my work._**

**_I thank you, anybody who reads my stories, even just once, and those who have sent me some really awesome Reviews and feedback, and those who have favorited and followed me or the story itself. _**

**_Dudes and dudettes, you guys rock!_**

**_I hope you all have an awesome-sauce day!_**

**_-Don_**

Chapter 22.

Suddenly It Seems Different...

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"You see this is where movies like the Terminator or Alien don't seem like such a bad idea for real life... It would be so much easier to put Auto-Sentry Turrets on the cameras then having to go Kung-Fu! on these lowlife burglars!"_**

**_-Writ 62 of Surveillance._**

When his father passed away, he was left was utterly nothing of his childhood, or the family life he had known throughout half of his time on Earth.

His uncle and mother were already gone, he never knew either of his grandparents, and at one point, there had been the assumption, the THOUGHT, that his mother had a brother and sister, but, they were never in the picture, so... It didn't happen, nor occur.

His father was buried at the national cemetery, and only ten people showed up for his funeral and burial rights...

It was one of the few times that Phillip Linn had been... Angry, like, hatefully angry.

He wasn't angry at those that had showed, or that he had been blessed for people to ACTUALLY show, he had been angry that his father was leaving this world, permanently, mind you, with so few friends and family to bid him farewell.

In fact, Phillip knew nobody at that funeral. They were all coworkers and acquaintances... Men and women he had never even seen before.

And the second that coffin vanished beneath the ground... They were all gone, and Phil was alone for the first time in his life. He was a loner, he had a house, property, a series of steady jobs, he had a small passion for creativity... But other than that, he was very incomplete.

He was so young, and it seemed like he had been so OLD, for a very, very long time.

It hadn't reached a point where life had no purpose... But there were days where Phillip felt very small in a bustling world filled with bustling, passing people.

It was not in the least bit pleasant.

Yet, on that note, he supposed his new circle wasn't sunshine and bunnies either...

This sociality was cold, like the metal that made the joints of these animatronic organisms he had become allies with, and the ones that were trying to kill him.

In this short, yet amazing, yet terrifying, YET stressful, and yes, YET invigorating, time, he had been exposed to a conglomerate of emotions and situations he never thought were physically possible. Moving, living robotic characters? A ninja-fox with a hook? A deranged one that was made of pipes?

C'mon, who honestly thought there were some doogies in the world running around with a crew like THAT, everyday?

This all meshed into a deep sleep at the end of story, really, there was so much information, separate stories, personal vendettas of a myriad of different people and creatures, it was overwhelming, even with his clasp on the situation.

Phillip Linn did not wake up for a good ten hours.

Gasping from the world of the resting, the young man sat bolt upright in the sweat-chilled sheets of his bed, he coughed on his own saliva, cleared his throat, and breathed heavily before staring about his morning light-illuminated bedroom.

The curtains were drawn, and they were highlighted with a thin tint of light blue, symbolizing the sun's beginning rise. A bird sang lowly in the backdrop outside, and the small drizzle of a daylight misting was apparent as an after shock from yesterday's downpour.

Speaking of, YESTERDAY, hadn't seemed real... He was positive for awhile it was just a nightmare...

But the aching of his leg reminded him otherwise.

Wincing, he slowly drew off his blanket, and sighed at his bare legs, the damage done to the right one in the form of eight bandaged gashes.

In honesty, now that he looked at the wounds with less panic, more time to slowly observe, the holes weren't DEEP, sure, they drew a lot of blood, but these were anything but mortal or life threatening, but they hurt like hell...

He shivered uncomfortably at the real extent of the damage that COULD have been done if that metal bird had her way...

He wasn't sure which was worse, the mafia bear, or his two psychotic buds that kept trying to eat his face.

They all blew chunks in his opinion...

But still, as you could picture, having your face eaten wasn't a very good alternative... So they were all bad. All three of 'em.

Phillip blew a breath out of his mouth, leaned back into the mound of pillows he had stuffed under himself after cleaning himself up the prior night, and stroked his hands through his hair as he eyed the ceiling.

He heard a distant muttered conversation between two other beings, and he discerned the high pitched voice of the Mangle being shushed by the snaps of Foxy.

He grinned lowly at the tiny racket, and flinched when he glanced at his bedroom door, which, prior unknown to his half-asleep self, had been closed.

A tiny knock came from the other end, and he sat upright before clearing his throat again.

"AHEM, um, who...?"

"Really?"

Foxy's annoyed voice muffled on the other end, and he could hear her foot tapping in impatience on the wood floor of the upstairs hall.

"-It's the mailman, I have a letter for you..." She chuckled sarcastically.

"Yes, ha ha, very funny,"

"Can I come in?"

"Mmmhmmm."

The handle squeaked, and the door parted for a slightly more lit hallway to be seen, partially blocked by the standing form of a half-robotic vulpine animatronic.

Foxy blinked at him behind the frame, grinned toothily, and shuffled her way into the bedroom before closing the door behind her quietly.

"Are you alright?" She asked quickly. "-Are you still hurt?"

"N-No, Fox'... I'm good..."

"Are you sure...?"

"Yep."

"... Okay..."

"Yeah, it's fine."

"Okay."

Foxy smiled at him and fiddled with her hook by twisting her thumb around the side of it by her pelvis. She bounced on her heels lightly and looked at the foot of the bed, because, well, now that she was here, she didn't... Really know what else to say.

It was awkward.

Phillip sat back and gestured for the ottoman that was by the righthand side of his bed, adjacent to his nightstand.

"Do you wanna sit?"

"Uhm... Yeah, yes..."

"Alright, well you can sit on the ottoman if you want."

"Alright..."

Foxy nodded and stepped across the carpet, sat down on the furniture whilst it squeaked in tiny, near unnoticeable protest to her metallic weight.

She flexed her sit, kicked her legs a bit and adjusted, before looking at him blandly, folding her arms in a hug over herself again.

"So... Are YOU okay, Foxy?"

"Mmhmm."

"Good!"

She smiled at him, but said nothing. Her behavior started to bother him.

"Fox' what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"If I can read you like a book after a few days, how good you think I am at it after a WEEK? Come on,"

"Phillip it can wait."

"What do you mean?"

"My issues can wait until you're able to move properly again,"

Well, Foxy, I don't exactly have much else to do up here besides talk. We aren't going to the dump-heap for the whole day... So... Start telling."

Foxy huffed, trademark-like, it seemed by this point. She rubbed her shoulders with her paw and side of her hook.

Nodding to the bedroom door, she spoke shyly.

"-This is a switch of gears but... Phillip... What did that... THING last night, mean?"

"THING? You mean like our rumble with care-bear wannabe?"

"NO! No... A-After that..."

"The thing with our mouths?"

"Mmm."

"That's called a kiss, Fox'."

"Yes... I know..."

"What of it?"

"What did you mean by it...?"

Now it was Phil's turn to act funky. He blinked and reclined further into the mess of softness he'd arranged himself, and chewed his tongue softly in stress.

Tracing the patterns on the front wall of his bed for a bit, he attempted to respond as best.

"-I... I-I don't know..."

"I don't normally pour my heart out, Phil..." Foxy pouted with a grumble. "All I wanna know is how serious you were with that..."

"W-Well... Fox', I... Alright, alright, no training wheels... Foxy I was... I was TRYING..."

"TRYING?"

"I wanted to see... The chemistry? I guess? I mean... We're both hanging on this border... Whatever it is, like we've been saying..."

"Uh-huh..."

"-And... You want something, and... A-And I want to make SOMETHING, work for you..."

"MMMmmmmm..."

"And... And God-damn it, Fox' I do not have a straight answer for you. You want some kind of relationship, I wanted to see how I would fair in just getting something... People, beings, in relationships do..."

Foxy supported her chin in her paw, elbow to her knee, as she listened to Phil attempt to make up some sort of break down of what happened last night.

She bounced her leg and flexed her chops, snickering in a less than amused way.

"Phillip... You were testing the waters?"

"NO! No! I wouldn't-! Foxy I'm not shallow! Especially with a... UNIQUE, case as this..."

"I know you aren't. But your answer was weird, if this were twenty years ago I would have taken it that way..."

"Well... Then... Then I'm sorry, I wanted to make you feel better, you were a wreck because I got a bit of a scuff."

"That shit's MORE than a scuff, Phil..."

"It's FINE. And anyway, I felt that trying to initiate a little experimentation, to show how I really am trying to feel more of towards you physically, is developing!"

"Alright, alright, try this..."

Foxy stood from the ottoman with another cushion-induced creak, she stood at the foot of the bed, took a few steps back to make most of her visible over his feet, and held her arms aloft briefly, turning herself in a spin slowly.

She gestured for herself and looked at him.

"What do you find ATTRACTIVE, on ME?"

"Oh for heaven's sake... Foxy, I'm not gonna size you up!"

"I'm not asking you to size me up, I'm asking you to tell me what you find drawing."

"Drawing? Attractive...?"

"Yep."

"It's not the body that makes a real romantic connection with somebody, Fox'..."

"Damn it, I KNOW that, now tell me what you like on me. ME. My body, if ANYTHING..."

"I told you my ways of handling our interaction haven't been based on my feelings of what you look like-"

"Would you just humor me, you freaking prude?"

She raised her brow in annoyance, her stand shifted weight to her right hip, she ran a paw down the air in front of her again, patiently awaiting whatever he had to say.

Phil felt a bead of sweat draw down his forehead, he swallowed, and drew lines, and more lines, over the space surrounding her limbs, her torso, her belly... Like he had realized many times ago... Foxy had the humanoid body of a young female.

Even though, during the many escapades of this nutshow they had been involved in, she never really came off as... PRETTY, or, even extreme adjectives like voluptuous or, full... Foxy certainly, if human, would have drawn eyes from men at public places...

She had appropriately balanced weight distributed between her thighs and backside, and again, if HUMAN, he would have been more inclined to see them as frustratingly nice to observe.

The barest hint of metal could be seen by a small trench, near unnoticeable, between the connection of her thighs to her pelvis, but despite that abnormality to him, the only thing that made it strange was the fact it was covered in russet fur, and was part of a walking fox.

A walking fox with a hook, on top of that.

Shaking his head, he looked upwards, to her belly, which, AGAIN, if human, would have resonated more with him in a very appealing hourglass curvature, the barest hint of a naval, and subsequent abdominal indent could be traced all the way from the base of her belly, to the chin of her rib section.

Upwards further, the cloth she had used to conceal her chest obscured any further sight seeing, but other than any possible concealed sections there, her shoulders were rounded, her clavicle was beveled nicely...

And of course her face, vulpine, elongated, was pleasant... Nice to stare at when she was happy or intrigued... Her eyes, thought, machine looking, were easy to get lost in, he always knew that...

Yet with all of these things that many human males would die for in a human woman... He couldn't entirely get over it still. Exactly that. Not HUMAN... That was why he was relying on time, because as more days with her went by... That barrier was slipping away.

Phillip knew if he connected with her more, he would be drawn to her, even with the different species aspect...

So, swallowing again, he dryly spoke.

"W-Well... Your hips are nice, I like your belly... Your face is cute, nice to see and touch..."

With some satisfaction, he noticed that, despite her professional nods to everything he said, she was getting redder the more he went on. Which, as he had reminded himself before, was weird for a half-robotic organism...

Guess it would help him get over that part if he found it more sensuous.

Meh.

"-Foxy I've told you... You AREN'T ugly, I think you are beautiful, and those repairs we did only upped the positive... Look at how nice all of your mesh is healing!"

"A-Alright..." She squeaked, head lowered in a flustered state. "-S-So... W-What about up here?"

Her paw waved around by her chest area, and she blinked.

Phillip bit his lip, raised his own palms, and put them down again with a tiny huff.

"-Foxy, I mean... I feel like such a dirtbag sizing you up like this, but-"

"You ARE NOT, sizing anything up. I said I wanted you to tell me what you liked on me. So here we are!" She growled. "-So NOW what's the problem?"

"I can't see underneath all the medical wrap..." He uttered.

Foxy rolled her jaw, pressed her chin to the textiles overlapping on her clavicle and torso to form some type of modesty on her.

She sighed, and rubbed at the chin of it by the top of her belly with her paw.

"-D-Do you... Want me to t-take it off...?"

"If you don't feel comfortable doing so than absolutely not." He stated quite readily. "-Foxy, this is YOUR body... If there is something you don't want me to see, or, you aren't READY to show me... Keep it covered."

"-W-Well... I... From what I've read on humans... I don't look all that different HERE, than the rest of my body does from a human female... I mean, less the tail, and... Fur." She snickered.

Phillip flexed his fingers in his bedsheets, and immediately felt the temperature in his home skyrocket.

"Uhm... Woo, uh... F-Fox', you know that's a very personal, erogenous zone of a human woman to show to someone else... Right?"

"Y-Yes... But I'd be willing too if you wanted..."

"I'm... I-It's your call."

Indeed it WAS her call, the problem, or, the conundrum, for him was the fact that Foxy most likely would have taken it off for him had the classical buffer for such a situation not presented itself.

Was it even possible for more than a few minutes of quiet to grace them every so often?

That was a debatable query that every day shrank away from hope.

Foxy jumped a bit in her stand when Phil's door thudded under an impacted force. There was a muffled, high pitched chatter, and scrabbling at the wood, like a cat would paw at a closed entry it could not tug open.

The Mangle's behavior sometimes was... Frightening. Not in a horror-scary sort of way.

"PHILLLLYYYY? Philly-kins! Open door!"

She knocked one of her many pipe-topping feet into the wood with a series of clacks.

"-T-The... What...? Ugh..." Phillip grumbled with a muffled laugh beneath his palms as they dragged down his face. "-The scary part is the door's unlocked..."

"She'll figure it out." Foxy snickered in disappointment, crossing her arms in a tight clench.

"Just open the door for her, please?"

"If I MUST..."

Foxy stepped over to the door knob, grabbed it and twisted, immediately flinched from the careening mess of flailing metal that bounded from the other side of the wood barrier.

Mangle flung herself like a ragged mess of tortured metal into the bedroom, and homed in on her target in no less than a second of time, more effective, and, possibly lethal, than a seeker missile. Phil didn't even get a chance to hold his hands up before he grunted in pain.

The whackjob smacked dead-center his gut, tangling over his jerked body as her pipe tentacles ensnared over the human to tie him up like an anaconda did to its prey.

Phillip had his teeth bore in a tight cringe of discomfort whilst his buddy trapped him atop his bed in a vice grip.

"_PHILLY!_" Mangle's fabric-distorted yelp came from his chest as the animatronic buried her snout in his shirt.

His fingers twitched, forearms unable to return any form of affection from the entanglement, he forced a smile.

"H-HI. MANGLE-ACK. HI. C-CAN'T BREATHE!"

"_Breathing for squares, Philly!_"

"Mangle get off of him, before you hurt him more!" Foxy snapped in agitation. "-I'll unscrew your ears and make you EAT them, if that happens!"

"But Foooxxxxxyyyyyy-!"

"LOSIN-ACK! LOSING OXYGEN! WORLD! GETTING DARKER!"

"Damn it, you flailing circuit cable-!"

"PHILLY! Help!"

"-I SEE-A LIGHT!"

Foxy's paw lashed out, clasped over Mangle's neck-pipe connection, and tugged back with enough force to slacken the wrap she had on the human's body, causing poor Phil to gasp in a sudden return of oxygen.

He coughed lowly and shook his head as the vulpine turned Mangle's head to face her own slowly.

With a sneer, Foxy gave a view of her frontal teeth.

"LIGHTEN UP, SISTER."

"-Buuut Fooooxxxxyyyyyyy! Philly-kins alive!"

"Yes... He IS, but he WON'T be if you CRUSH HIM!"

"-But me happy Fooxxxxyyyyy!"

"Yeah well...! I... Ugh... I'm happy too, you freak..."

She bowed her gaze away and let go of the other animatronic whilst Phillip managed to snag his arms free, and pat some of the surrounding tentacles lightly.

Mangle spiraled back to him and grinned toothily.

"Hiiiiii Philly." She chirped.

"Hi, Mangle..." He sighed musingly. "-Thank you for the concern... Just, you know, don't crush me."

"Me never crush you, Philly!"

"Well that's a good thing!"

"Mmmhmmm! We beat bad guys! Then we be bestest BESTEST friends, Emperor Philly-Kins!"

"Once again, also a good thing."

Phillip patted the animatronic's head, snickered at the cheap grin he got as reaction, and looked at Foxy over Mangle's ears.

She hovered nearby to the display with a sort of disappointed smile over her features, she wrung his fingers on the metal-connection that made her hook's stance on her right arm.

"Uhm... Fox', we'll... We'll talk about what we were, LATER, is that okay?"

"Sure." She nodded. "-But, changing the subject, by A LOT, what exactly did you say we were... Doing, at the pizzeria, again?"

"Pffft..." Phillip blew out air from his mouth upon remembering. "-I said we should find a SOURCE, if one exists, of where these endoskeleton-freaks are coming from. Maybe the bear is animating them from a storeroom in there..."

"Phillip, I honestly don't believe there is a STOREROOM, that me or Matthew haven't discovered... I'm speaking with thirty years of living there, mind you."

"I would never discredit that, Fox'. But what else- Like, how else would it be possible for these things to keep coming?"

"Phillip... Matthew has told you that Freddy isn't natural-"

"Walking, living robotic serial-killers usually aren't." Phil interjected with a laugh.

Foxy rolled her eyes at him.

"-BESIDES the obvious for you humans... The whole 'Baphomet' discussion? Phil, I've been fighting that bastard for years, but that doesn't mean I know what he REALLY is, underneath his physical body..."

"Well, you think he's like a ghost or something?"

"Personally..."

"Yep?"

"-No exaggeration... Phillip, I believe Freddy is either a gathering of negativity... Just, pure hate turned into a living entity to possess a physical form... Or... I truly think he could be a demon..."

Phillip stared silently, mulling the response over. The words that Foxy had just said were tested within his mind, and, putting aside logic, as, logic was no longer relevant in this debacle, there was basis for both hunches...

If Freddy was just an incarnation of emotional evil combined into a wraith-like energy living inside that suit, he must have been created, or, formed, BORN, somewhere other than the pizzeria, as, he still recalled Matt's showing of the eighty-year old strip of parchment he had recovered from Fredd's innards.

The demon assumption had structure too.

What if Freddy WAS this Baphomet character that he had been getting glances and mentions of? Was it possible they were enemies with an eldritch monster that had been terrorizing people for hundreds of years?

Maybe even thousands? To the days of antiquity?

Phillip blinked, and daydreamed this inner bulletin-board layered with sticky-notes and marker-written information while he stared at Foxy silently.

She had a frown of concentration on her features too, so, the security guard bit his tongue as first preparation for response.

"-I think either are possible here..." He finally choked out. "-While both are... GRIM, I also think we can overcome them if we work at it."

"Overcome something that has ended people for... THAT long?" Foxy muttered.

"-Every old evil eventually falls, Fox'," Phillip pointed out. "-And they always fall to the victims they least expect resistance from."

-0-0-0-0-0-

"You want us to do WHAT?"

"It's very simple! I honestly have little idea as too why you are so flustered, my friend!"

"I. Am. NOT- Abandoning those halls to those insects. You hear me?"

"Of course! That'd be hogwash to let them run rampant on our property! This may be our fight of fights, B', but the worst is yet to come! Property will mean nothing once our goals are met..."

"OUR goals? That's a tad shrewd..."

"Do you digress? Passionately? Give me something you have done in your existence, that has not been intermarried with something I have done. Name it."

"I haven't named anything in my life..."

"You know why?"

"Because your powers would never LET me..."

"Weak mind, weak barriers. Folded like a cheap lawnchair, B'."

"I'd swing at you..."

"-Buuuttt, I'd break your arm. Little add-in,"

Drumming his clawed, fur-matted fingers on the table, Freddy switched from clenching the top's sides to leaning on its wooden surface with his bunched knuckles, a brow raised in comedic mockery to the bulky rabbit animatronic before him.

Bonnie rolled his jaw, staring across the opposite end of the dining table, presented next to several others of its kind before the higher view of the stage they were usually confined too.

The smell of cleaner was heavy in the air still, even after the entire weekend, the building was dark, and sunlight crept in through miniscule crevices created by partially drawn or loosely lowered shades, and aluminum covers over the larger windows.

Freddy had vocally announced what his intended next step was, and by all means, Bonnie did not like it.

"Normally we don't have to PREPARE the trap, before some fool steps into it. If you get my meaning,"

"NORMALLY, the fool is not aware of our presence in the trap and comes in underequipped. I suggest we enable ourselves to deal with resistance in the form of two animatronics, both of whom, are reliant on speed, agility, and acrobatic combat...

Not to rain on your parade, B', but you and the freak aren't very... 'Agile'."

"Never was one to dampen yourself,"

"-SECONDLY, the human has proven that, yes, he is just as vulnerable when caught alone as any other human we have preyed on, but that he has fight in him. He warded off ole' Chi' long enough until Foxy was able to bail him out."

Bonnie spat out a growl and curled his chops over his teeth.

"Bah, worms are hard to hold when they're slimy..."

"Slimy worm or not, I want him stepped on. As long as these two humans live, the new guard, the old man, we will never be able to corner Foxy or Mangle."

"Why don't we just rush them? God damn it, Freddy, we can't we just SINGLE out one of them, and BREAK THEM?! All three of us!"

"It is never so simple, you sycophant..."

"And your blatant superiority complex IS?!"

"Obvious facts I don't keep subtle? Oops? B'? Get real with what our options are."

"You've been unreachable for so long, you can't FATHOM options! There is only ONE option, YOUR OPTION!"

Freddy grinned humorously to his lackey's rant, even going so far to 'tsk' in disappointment when the rabbit hunched over with his fangs hanging out like some rabid animal.

Bonnie watched the expression cast in direction for no more than a few seconds before he barked in agitation and swung around from the table.

"AaaahhH! What's the use, you fucker?! I've been stuck in hell for my life! You say different, I KNOW you say different, but it is NO different a shithole than mine!"

"Oh, B'... Calm down would you?"

"Look, just-GAH!" Bonnie kicked a chair out of his way whilst he vented his anger onto more inanimate objects.

The seat bounded with a metal, plastic-like thwack across the room where it put another scuff in the childish purple/navy paint in the western wall of the eating area. The furniture clattered to the floor and lay still, its front metal leg bent not from the impact, but from the animatronic's foot.

"-Freddy, just get whatever your hungry mind has spewed out this time, done! It's been thirty years! I WANT OUR LOOSE ENDS CUT OFF!"

"You want this perfect godsend we've been killing, and murdering, and butchering for, for LONGER, than thirty years, B'? You want it just like me, and the freak? Yes?"

Freddy stepped around the table and jabbed a finger at the hare as he swung his arm like an angry beast, and stormed towards the doors to the back sections of the establishment.

"YES? Was that a YES?"

"Shut up!"

"Then you have to buckle down, sit back, stop objecting, and FOLLOW WHAT I AM TELLING YOU!"

"SHUT UP!"

"I have no entitlement to shut up, B'! NO ENTITLEMENT! You know why? Because you've been screaming that exact phrase to me and the freak for as long as anyone can remember!"

"YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!"

"I know damn well! DAMN. WELL!"

Bonnie punched the left door aside, so much that it shivered and ground on its hinges, the plastic dented in the girth, he managed half of himself through the darker end before the bear remarked further.

"I entered this world to make a domain for us, B'! A domain for US! All five of us!"

"You can't even get the numbers right you piece of shit!"

"THERE WAS NO SIXTH!"

"Thirty years! Gotten old in the mind, huh?!"

"Arguing with a masonry brick! Where have I fallen too?" Freddy threw his palms to ceiling, circled around to delve back into the dining area.

"We've all fallen! Me, the freak, the fox, the mental patient, AND you! All of us! Because YOU corrupted EVERYTHING you touched!"

**_CLACK_**

The door swung shut, and Freddy ground his teeth to the suddenly dominant silence that invaded the previously noisy room, and the pizzeria as a whole.

He paced, back and forth, for a good minute, burned holes in the floor, than he considered going to the back of the building to find and beat the daylights from Bonnie, repented from so.

In the end all the bear did was stomp up the stage, lose himself behind the storage space, his palms clenched, released slowly, and while to himself, the evident, yet barely perceivable tinge of illuminated red, was only seeable to him, it was not true in the slightest.

There was a dull thud back there, and his voice grumbled alongside the droning mockeries of sentient speech from three other mouths.

The door to the front of the building swung open, and three stumbling shapes emptied out into the night.

Freddy watched them go silently, with a, for the first time mind you, blank expression.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	23. Chapter 23

_**Holy crud, I sure had a delayed update this time, huh? **_

_**Woo-hoo! I finally DID update it though! I hope any readers think this is a kewlzers chapter. I wish I could think of something for, and update, my Skyrim story this fast. :/ I probably have somebody who thinks I suck because I haven't been able to get anything with that going for awhile!**_

_**Welp, back to the drawing board after this one...**_

_**-Don **_

Chapter 23.

We Have a Plan... But so do They...

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"Always try coating the floor with flypaper and keeping a flammable solvent at the office door. Kill two birds with one stone! Catch AND end the criminals! Ingenious!"_**

**_-Writ 66 of Surveillance_**

Trudging down the steps was actually quite morale boosting, seeing as the damage done to him indeed, still did sting up a storm and ache profusely, but was no quite appearing to be less of a problem in the overall scheme.

Phillip was quite jubilant when he reached the foot of the stairs without Foxy's aid, and he cris-crossed about the house to tidy it up just fine, all the while, with the Mangle curled over his shoulders.

The activities of the little weirdo usually, at the worst of times, had been quite agitating, but, with such a stressful atmosphere present, he presumed if the worst thing he had to worry about was an excited, slightly-hyperactive buddy of his, that life right now was good.

Cleaning up the foyer from the pool of rainwater that had drenched the carpet, he wiped the floor down with a towel, draped the carpet over the railing on his back porch to dry (All the while looking about nervously for would-be endoskeleton freaks) and threw he sopped clothes into the washing machine.

Chores were still simplistic, but with the recent little hobby he had been stuck in for a week now, they seemed OVERLY simplistic, if applicable to those who got the gist.

People never really did get how one's life could be so impacted, just be realizing a truth that would have been scoffed on normal circumstances. True, humanity feared the unknown, but what happened when you KNEW the unknown was just... Strange, albeit.

Strange and undoubtedly invigorating, in a awkward sense... Who else got to stop evil beside two walking, talking sentient partial-mechanical dudes? Or, he supposed in this case, dudettes.

The Mangle made an intrigued noise that sounded no less acute to a hiccup, he frowned with all knowing, an reclined from the wall he leant too as he wiped it down with a rag to remove the moistness from yesterday.

Blinking, he reached forwards and snatched a box of detergent the Mangle had taken from the wash room by the kitchen, out of her tentacles' clasp as the object was tipped over her into her maw.

He coughed as white powder plumed in the air lightly, and waved his free hand about as the Mangle whined in disapproval.

"-AhG! Pfft-pthew! What the hell, Mangle?!"

"_Ib tafe immigoraing, Fillwe!_"

Mangle's speech was hampered by the mountain of flour-like powder bulging in her mouth, her talking kicked up translucent wisps of the stuff that flowed about in the air above.

She gave off a 'Woooo...' to the display and swallowed with a dry wallop of her metal innards.

"Me think Army Hammer brand taste better than Tidey!"

The guard gawked in surprise, gazed into the interior of the dusty, barrenly empty, detergent box, looked back at his stupidly grinning companion, and jabbed a finger at the cardboard in incomprehensive disbelief.

"-I-I-! I don't even-!"

"Philly sound funny! We need tea! Me make some-!"

"First off, NO! You aren't going ANYWHERE near the appliances! That's just begging to have my house burn down..."

"Awww! But, Philly-!"

"-Second-off, if you wanna HELP me clean up, then don't EAT my hard-earned materials! Pick up a Fantastic Bottle to spray the floor! Get a rag! Oh my God, I'd even be willing to risk letting you DUST the place!"

"-FOXXXYYYY! Foxy! Foxy! Can you make tea?! Philly says me burn mouse if try to use applied sciences!"

Phillip groaned, leaned back on the floor, and clapped his palm into his forehead with frustration.

Defeated, he never noticed Foxy's step into the foyer to gaze between the two of them curiously, before she actually spoke with a suspicious tone.

"Do you mean... The APPLIANCES?" She asked Mangle with a raised brow. "-Yeah, I don't blame Phillip one bit for saying that."

"But Foxxxxyyy! Me need tea! Me need tea like bees need honey!"

Phillip's distorted comment etched through the skin of his palm.

"Bees don't NEED honey, they MAKE honey, you weirdy..."

"Listen, Mangle, I think the last thing we NEED is more tea for you to get your... Fix, off of." Foxy sighed, crossing her arms in the entryway to the kitchen.

The opposite animatronic looked between them briefly, sniffed with a tiny snort, and blinked her one good eye before twisting her head to the left slightly. Her lower mandible quivered and she hunkered towards Foxy's angle.

"PWEASE?" Was all she squeaked.

"Ugh..." Foxy grabbed her temples between her thumb and pointy, her tail cut through the air in quick whisks at her rear. "-Phillip... Can you just-"

"I can't believe this... You know that? You just got done-in by the PUPPY-DOG face. Are you serious?" The human snickered as he pressed his hands to the wall to lift himself up.

The vulpine sighed gruffly and began to trot back towards the kitchen as Phil walked, with a slight limp, to begin picking up all the cleaning equipment that lay in little huddles around the room.

At the end, he'd spent nearly an hour tidying the dirtied entrance to his home.

He would have been done sooner if, as prior demonstrated, the Mangle hadn't drank some of the spray-cleaners and nabbed junk from the wash room to act as a side-dish. By this point, Phillip was not only 'Mangle-Proof' as joked earlier, but now he was convinced the freakshow had an incinerator for a gut.

Marshmellows, cleaner chemicals, car seat leather, subsequent foam interior, insects, and who the heck knew what else she'd ingested? None of these things bothered the entangled mess in the slightest.

She just cheered in the notion she'd gotten another mug of tea in it for her, and clambered on top of Phil's shoulders with a couple of clanks up his side and hip to curl behind and over his head. Phil grunted from the added weight.

"-In addition to all this! How the heck do you know the taste-difference between brands?" He snapped suddenly to her.

"Don't ask." Foxy chimed in quickly from her seat at the kitchen table, rubbing her temple with a stroking paw.

Phillip got out a mug, blinked, and stared at the interior of it heavily for a moment.

The Mangle chattered in impatience, and he ground his teeth in realization.

They were soon going back into the mud pit, and if they weren't careful... They might not exactly have another fun debacle like this ever again. Fun, and annoying, from the Mangle's additions. Beside the point rather...

"Alright, Fox', Mangle, while I make the tea, we need to talk about how we're gonna do this..." He blurted out, feeling the pipe-made animatronic on his back coil tighter at the words.

Foxy watched him blankly from the table, her silence being more than any confirmation she could've given for him to start breaking it down.

"The freaks don't activate until around... Midnight, right?"

"Yes." Foxy replied. "-Midnight, until six."

"What about these endo-freaks? They seem resistant to the effects of daylight like Mangle..."

"They should be the first thing to worry about."

Mangle shook her head rapidly in agreement and watched over Phil's hairline as he poured in powdered tea into the mug on the counter.

"I think me and Matt should start tearing the place up, look for clues. Maybe a hidden area that Freddy has recently made his new base of operations, or a hideout, SOMETHING, that has only recently been converted..."

"Well, I told you, I can't think of any structures in that cesspool that me or Mangle haven't seen before..."

"Then," Phillip let the sink fill the mug gradually with steaming hot water. "-If YOU were an evil demon-loving dirtbag, where would YOU set up a hellish-shrine? Or a ritual site? A meeting place?"

Foxy's ears drooped, she reached up, chewed her hook, teeth singing dully on the metal, and glared at the floor by his feet.

There was a clanging of a spoon ringing against the glass of the mug, he let it sit briefly, and continued to address Foxy.

"I think we will have to figure out most of it when we get there. I mean... We can't just... BREAK them, can we? Like is it possible to kill one of them...?"

The animatronic gave off an atmosphere of dread to him bringing the question up, her teeth ground against the curved steel they gripped, and she blinked expressionlessly at the floor. Taking care not to dent her only 'Weapon' of sorts, she opened her jaws, hissed air.

When it was evidently clear her first attempt at speech faltered, Foxy coughed lowly, retried.

"-Uhm. Y-Yes... We may not be humans, Phillip, but we can be KILLED in many physical ways you can as well..."

"Such as?"

"I mean... Trauma-wise, or with the elements. If our bodies were physically destroyed, we would die. If we burned to ashes, or we got electrocuted to the point something was fried, we'd die..."

"So that means we've been fighting them the only ways we really can?"

"Basically..."

"Huh... Crap."

Phillip bit his lip and raised the mug absent-mindedly up to the top of his head where Mangle made a gleeful noise, snatched it from him, and immediately chattered shortly after.

Retracting his hand, the guard leant his right hip on the kitchen counter to observe Foxy's literal teething.

"Alright, so, I'm not gonna beat this to death... We've 'Prepared' I think as best we could..."

"Uh-huh?" Foxy muffled over her hook.

"-But one last question,"

"Mmm?"

"You think they could have fortified the pizzeria? Like, set up a trap? Or something? ANYTHING?" Phillip raised a brow, brushed away the mug that now dangled in his face from Mangle's draping pipe-limb wrapped around the handle, with his right hand.

The other animatronic unlatched her hook from her jaws, blinked at the still shiny metal.

"They've never had someone fight back before, Phillip... I wouldn't put that possibility past them."

"Then, uh... I guess the mace can won't cut it much longer..." He snickered in defeat, grunting with an annoyed tone to push away the mug hung before his nose again. "-Just drink it already!"

"But it delicious, Philly!"

He went bug eyed upon realizing the thing had been empty the whole time, took it in his hold cautiously with both hands, almost as if in fear a facehugger from Alien would pop out.

Phil shook his head, remembered the lack of logic his life now held, and lightly put the cup in the sink by his rear.

"I think we're gonna need some pretty bug toys to deal with this." He stated cautiously, scratching his hair with a free finger. "-I think I'm getting that crowbar. I think I'm snatching up a few steak knives, and..."

Foxy frowned worriedly as the muttering human got this concentrated twist on his features, and he stumbled backwards towards the cutlery drawer beneath the kitchen counter, slid it open, and grabbed three of his largest steel implements.

Phillip put two big knives and a cleaver on the marble top with a clattering sound, reached up and plucked the Mangle off of his head without so much as a word of acknowledgement to her yip of surprise.

She bounced comically, being plopped down in one of the table's chairs as the human passed by it to the front door.

Feeling her fingers drumming on the table's surface, Foxy sighed, watched, half-lidded, as her friend vanished outside the slamming door into the daylight.

Her emotions began to cloud her, and without much thought to it, she let them sputter out her next words.

"-God forbid, Mangle... What if this all goes south...? Huh? Then what...?" Foxy renewed her bad tendency of chewing her hook, and Mangle blinked curiously.

"We go with birdies for Winter! Yay!"

"Ugh..." The vulpine grumbled.

-0-0-0-0-0-

A long time ago, a undisputed, long, LONG time ago, there had been the years of their 'Partners in Crime' relationship.

Wherever these two men went, they stuck through it all side by side as no less than their very own, patched up antique excuse for brotherhood. By the point in their lives the evils of such an innocent place had been unveiled to them... They were near siblings.

At a young age, Matthew had never encountered another person with whom he'd share such a friendship with. In fact, he had found companionship before brotherhood.

His family, his business... He realized so long after, that it was not just the hands of fate that had taken them away from him.

The occupation at the children's pizzeria broke him as much as it made him the hardened beacon of wisdom he currently was. There was a quad named mess of evil creatures within its halls, metallic killers that fed off of death and destruction.

Matthew had been under the words of his own sights, and lack of in depth information. He thought they were all evil.

And for a while, so did Jensk.

The unrelated brothers, the greatest allies, both of them were frightened by the presentation of something that had been festering in the middle of a woodland community for... Possibly centuries, after all, who KNEW? To the furthest extent?

Jensk came up with entire elaborate plans on how he could stop the animatronics. He tried using weapons on them a handfull of times, his old sidearm from Boston, a tazer, a baton, once, the man nearly lost his head charging with a lead pipe.

For awhile in the old fight, Jensk was wild with apprehension on how to destroy these 'Metal Demons'. He began to disregard his personal safety, putting Matthew's above his own.

Whilst Jensk took a more, literally, direct approach, Matthew scoured the area locally for anyone with any form of expertise to stop the creatures. The scrapyard incidents... Happened after the first newest companion did not survive.

Matt didn't see which one of them did it to poor Harrolson, the first nightguard, but George was the beginning of a string of victims.

Matthew felt responsible for all those fatalities in his quest to keep he, and his best friend, safe from the rending claws of the animatronics. In his youth he believed his fear made him push other people in front of the raging locomotive before he and Jensk were tested by the flame...

So many people had been killed. Murdered, truly. They had been ended by other sentient beings beneath a ruse of children's entertainment. George Harrolson was merely a step to many more.

It made Matthew sick.

His own behavior back then made him sick.

Every day of his life now, he found himself grimacing at least once. Behind the wheel, he gripped the olden leather wrap and dug into it with his nails.

His drive to the pizzeria was stressful, and the ironic part was, it was stressful while in a van on the road, and there wasn't a soul ON said road.

Sighing heavily, he turned the wheel, slowly guided the retro-styled van into the entrance to the parking lot of his establishment, he pulled into a space, put his vehicle in PARK, leant into his seat, and waited.

He waited a damned long time. Long enough that when he noticed he'd parked next to another automobile, his head almost spun off like a dizzy top. Checking the driver window through his passenger view, he saw the matted, messy interior, and immediately remembered the vehicle's owner.

The bulky, externally dirtied, and internally whipped with a tornado straight from the alley, was the run-down van of the second janitor of the pizzeria, Steven.

Matt recalled this was the... 'Weirdo' that Phillip had complained of briefly when they had first met after his initial job offering. Now though, it seemed Phil was more keen on referring to Mangle as the weirdo.

Shaking his head on it, Matthew unlocked the door and stepped out onto the pavement.

Slamming the entry shut and clicking the LOCK pad on his keychain, he stepped over to the sidewalk that ringed around the exterior of the pizzeria, and sneered at the cartoony sign above the front entrance showing the animatronics as children's characters you'd see on the kiddy-channels.

"Matt? Boss?"

"Aye, Steven, how are you?"

Turning swiftly to the voice, Matthew offered his hand to the lumbering man stepping from the back of the white van, garbed in jean-styled overalls, a white apron. He retracted when the boy just stood there dumbly.

"What are ya doin' here so early?"

Matt had a thing for tolerating accents or the way people sounded. By all means, Steven sounded like one of those stereotype 'Hicks' you could laugh at on social media videos.

But lord almighty, he ALSO had a thing for people who talked like blatant assholes, and Steven was that kind of guy.

"I was actually going to ask YOU the same question, Steven. I didn't call for a mess."

"Son of a bitch..." The janitor cursed in annoyance, drawing a palm down his stubble-laden face. "-Well who the hell DID?"

Matt's eyes shot open.

"What do you mean WHO did? No one did!"

"Sounded like ya on the phone, or was it just a GHOST, huh? HA!"

On a normal day, Matt would've just reminded the custodian to keep his attitude in check for the sake of his continued payment, but today, this wasn't exactly a normal, nor laughable matter.

"Steven, you must listen to me, I need you to get back in your van, you need to leave! NOW!"

"Hold up thar', boss, I'a came here to clean shit up. I'mma cleanin' shit up, than leavin'."

"No no, here me with this, Steven, I am your boss. There is a dangerous matter here, YOU. NEED. TO. LEAVE!"

"Damn it, Matt I'ma gettin' sick of your freak-ass behavior. Why not let the com'n man in on the secret?"

Matthew's jaw dropped to this man's stupidity.

Good lord above, he'd found someone that made the Mangle look like Isaac Newton! On all fragging days! Why now?!

The fact of Steven's elevator not going to the top floor was going to have to be another obstacle for him to work around. He'd have to find something to get the unruly custodian back in his van, without raising suspicion of, really with no other description, foul play.

Steven may have been a schmuck, but he obviously, unfortunately, knew what a phone was and what the buttons did when you clicked them. So what in the living basket-cases did they do if he phoned the police?

Nothing good would come of it, because every time law enforcement had become involved with the conundrum of these animatronics, a combination of people being dubbed insane, being framed for crimes they didn't commit, and narrowly dodging arrest, ensued quite quickly.

No one would believe them about 'Killer Children's Robots' in the pizzeria down the highway.

"Look, Steven-" Matthew thought fast, at least, with some need for credit. "-J-Just give me a minute and I'll fetch your pay! There's obviously been a confusion with your schedule! I'll get you your money-J-Just STAY OUTSIDE!"

"Nowa hold up-"

Steven obviously wasn't so keen on pursuing the argument anymore once the green had been mentioned, so Matt was easily able to break away and start sprinting for the front entrance.

The janitor spat on the pavement, made a derogatory comment on the old man's van, and paced beside his vehicle impatiently.

The glass door clacked shut, quiet came over the parking lot, save for the distant hiss of an occasional car passing down the highway on the other side of the woods that surrounded the pizzeria on all sides.

Roughly, even though the area wasn't developed outside of said establishment, and a few abandoned houses, it resembled untamed forest around here.

Steven noted the dark-blue colored sky and the sun hiding over the horizon.

He wasn't informed of the true horrors that this place held, and, honestly, even if he was, the reference most likely wouldn't have registered to begin with. Neither would the front entry of the pizzeria slapping shut again.

And obviously, neither would the lurch his van made to the weight shouldering past it.

"-Listen'a here, Matt, I undastand you being annoy'd wit me, but if ya touch my beauty I'la-"

**_CLK_**

Steven's face contorted mid speech as he turned to face his parked vehicle, the stained, white apron that covered his overalls suddenly jerking in a tug of cloth. His torso hunched, jaw twitched, arms splayed on both sides a matted, fur-coated metal appendage jabbing forwards too his gut.

There was a deep, ragged snort, Steven saw four trails of crimson driving down the white of his apron, a animal paw, made not from flesh, had its palm facing upwards too his downward pointed chin as he gaped at his gut in anguish.

"-Y-You... Whadda hell-?"

Steven looked up just in time to see a pair of yellow, luminescent eyes narrow down at his face.

"Primitive, really," The hulking giant commented lowly, rearing back his metallic-jointed neck with a creak of steel. "-And disgusting."

Steven sputtered blood when he went to curse at whatever had just impaled him, Freddy's head jolted forwards, and the janitor's face angled inwards from the concussive force that caved in the front of his head.

An iron clank reported about the parking lot, clicks of dripping followed the initial squelch, and Freddy let the body slide off of his claw-nails to crumple on the pavement below. Standing over the corpse, the bear reached back down, grabbed a wad of the man's apron and overalls, and dragged him towards the van.

"You're not the only one unrestrained by midnight, Foxy-girl," Fredd chuckled lowly, snatching the latch handle of the van's left rear door.

The plastic and metal screamed in a brief message of torture, and without a key, nor a lock now, Freddy threw the door aside with its opening mechanism dented and ruined. He tossed the casualty inside the back with a ruffle of movement, clapped his palms together to rid the blood stains, and closed the entry again.

"Rodent."

The bear sighed in annoyance when he rubbed his forehead with a digit, and it came back red. Taking his top-hat off briefly, he drew the whole palm down, shook it by his waist, and silently trekked towards the rear of the building.

Two shapes gathered at his flanks when he passed by the utilized van, not his usual chaps, but they would do.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Phillip... Not that I'm complaining, it's actually very handy, but... Uhm..."

"Why an extra set of car doors?"

"-Yeeeaaaahhh."

"I've told you I had a thing with art going for a while, right?"

"Vaguely?"

"I tried working on automobiles... Like 'Pimp My Ride' sort of thing."

"...Pimp...?"

"Uh, nevermind. I tried making cars look pretty, or cool... It never really worked..."

"So... You still have all the parts?"

"Yeah. Half of my tools came from that too, you know."

"Oh, believe me... I do INDEED, know."

Foxy took a moment to rub about the healing mesh about her body that was, like said, only possible because of Phillip's expertise with those power tools.

Smiling at the thought, she watched as the human finished cranking a ratchet several more times, flinching with each strange, grinding noise the tool made whenever he turned the handle.

Phillip tossed the thing back into a box full of similar apparatus, retrieved a roll of duct tape, and basically drew the silvery material across all the joints that allowed the door to normally open. Standing from the crouch, the guard kicked the red-colored door, and nodded.

"I'll have to get an ACTUAL door later someday... But, this is better than driving around with a gaping hole in the car, right?"

"_Ight Illy_!" Mangle muffled over with a wrench sticking out of her jaws, and gob coating the handle and lower head.

Phil blinked, grumbled, and stepped towards the table where the freak was curled up trying to eat ANOTHER of his belongings.

Foxy folded her arms over herself, rolled her eyes when he snatched the wrench from the Mangle's mouth with a 'Pi-Toowie!' sound from the discombobulated vulpine. The young man held it by two fingers, made a disgusted face at it, and tossed it back on the table with a wet clatter of metal on wood.

Rubbing his hand on his jeans, he frowned at the smiling animatronic, sighed, and turned to Foxy and his half-assed repairs to the Ford.

"-It'll have to do." He snickered. "You ready, Fox'?"

"As I'll be." She responded. "How about you?"

"Likewise."

"Me think we should use handy-nade!" The Mangle piped up from nowhere, earning a confused glance from both other parties. The animatronic's wild grin to the idea faded slowly, she sniffed the air, and made a tossing motion with a foot-topped tentacle.

"Do you mean... A hand GRENADE...?" Phil queried.

"Yeah! Philly-kins got it!" Mangle clapped two palms together excitedly. "-When we use it?!"

"We don't have a hand grenade, you weirdy."

"Where we buyz one?"

"You can't just BUY hand grenades..."

"Maybe Horsey-With-No Name has one... He already have no identificationz! Hardened bad-guy, Philly!"

"Oh Christ... Just get in the car."

The Mangle cheered and flung herself into the ajar window of the driver's seat to tumble about in the back of the vehicle.

Phil stood straight from his dodge of the flailing mess of metal, scratched his hair briefly, and gestured for the car to Foxy. She shook her head in agreement, stepped over the tools on the floor of the garage, and opened the front passenger door.

"Phillip..."

"Yep?" He was stopped right before he could sit down in his own place as driver.

Foxy drummed her fingers on the roof, gripping the door's internal handle with her hook, she blinked at him.

"-We're going to be alright... Right?"

Phillip stopped his pattern abruptly, bit his lip, took out the one foot he had in the car and circled around the hood to meet her on the opposite side.

Foxy relented from the frame she leaned on when he finished crossing the short distance, and held her paw aloft when he raised his hands. Clasping the digits, furred ones, to fleshy pink, Phil squeezed and looked upwards to her.

"Foxy, I've said it before. We're going to stop them. I'll make it happen."

"You know I trust you..."

"Know it. We're a team here, as long as we fill in each other's weaknesses, and put out our strengths, we're unbeatable."

"If we get jumped by all of them again... We'll be the ones with numerical superiority," She smiled positively. "-We'll work together and smash the bear's bastard-head into a pulp."

"That's right. We're all coming out of this, whatever THIS turns out to be, anyway... Come on."

Phillip detached from her, sluggishly, and her arms draped too him the entire time he stepped back to go around the hood again, because she didn't want to stop holding onto him.

In all reality within her mind, no dodging of what she wanted, she had WANTED to do that mouth-thing again... Foxy wanted to make sure she had at least something more recent to keep her spirit up.

That 'Kiss' had made her so happy.

She wanted to do it again, and, frankly, again and again and AGAIN... Yet the circumstances cut it short once more.

Feeling cheated with herself, she hastily curled into the passenger seat, adjusted with a few shifts, and clacked the door shut after her. The car hissed and grumbled when Phillip turned the key into the ignition, looked over his shoulder, smiled at her.

The world jolted lowly as he backed from the garage, the Mangle poked her head from the back to grin wildly at her friends, and chattered appreciatively when Foxy rubbed her palm between her ears.

The garage shut, Phillip cleared the driveway, the evening road stood dominant, and the trip down the highway to hell began in earnest.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	24. Chapter 24

_**So first off, it took me awhile to get this one pumped out, huh? Sorry about that, lolz.**_

_**I actually don't know what you, my dudes and dudettes, will think of this one, but I hope any readers really like it.**_

_**Thank you very much for taking the time to read my story and give me some feedback or a follow for many fellow Fanfictioners! I appreciate your support greatly, it's a special feeling knowing that somebody likes to read new material I put out in a continued work, thank you very much!**_

_**Have an awesome-sauce rest of your day, or night, wherever thou' art bein'g!**_

_**Remember, stick to the happy trees and clouds! Bob may have been funny-sounding, but that's the most peace I've EVER come across while surfing the television.**_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 24.

Mood Swings.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"Look! It's a bird! It's a plane! _**

**_NO! It's the descending pink-slip for your fifteen minute break, dumb-whack! Those cameras won't monitor themselves! What were you thinking?!"_**

**_-Writ 69 of Surveillance_**

When he had been a child, the feeling of the lightly shifting chassis of a car had given him a sort of calming effect that, with little failure, normally rendered him a drooling, sleeping bundle in the backseat when his father was at the wheel.

The young age, the comfort of a happy home life, a jubilant, loving father, and the knowledge that toys and videogames galore awaited him every day at the house, all combined into a reason for the little tyke to pass out like a light whenever the car massaged the chairs inside it.

All those years ago... Weren't THAT long ago... Surely, Phillip was no longer a child, he hadn't been for enough time to pass of him owning his own house, a car, purchasing his own needs...

But the time of innocence was a lost, missed period of his life, as he imagined it was for millions of young adults, and even older, across the globe.

He missed his father, really.

So the car ride towards the pine-tree lined highway gave him a swim through the lake of nostalgia, and it also made him feel a tad depressed. He had such a sheltered life, a good one. A little lonely, but, it wasn't like he was eating rats in an alley way to survive.

He felt grateful for the things he had every day... The tiny surge of venom that built in him after dad passed away, the feeling of being CHEATED, kind of didn't exist in his system anymore.

Yet the events with this stupid pizzeria that apparently housed the Hades Underworld Club... They actually allowed him to relapse a smidge.

The days of sneering at photographs he saw of people who had mourned Linn senior's death one minute, and vanished the next, were of course no longer present in his day. He swore he would stop feeling so negative, and his vow had paid off.

Driving in his beaten to-hell Ford though... It made him think.

So he just gripped the wheel and zipped his mouth shut whilst Foxy sat stone still in the seat beside his, and the Mangle fiddled with the ice-scraper she had previously tried to eat over at Matt's driveway, for some meager entertainment.

For now, the only noises were the hiss of passing air outside the closed windows, the grind of tires on pavement, and the occasional louder exhale from the anxious vulpine at his right.

Foxy stroked her palm over the side of her hook, chewed it, scratched at the itches coming from Phil's repairs to her limbs and torso. After awhile she just went totally quiet, and kept eyes on the passing lines on the center lane as they drove.

Phillip clacked his teeth inside his mouth, grumbled, and went to speak, and then faltered.

He really needed to stop with this clamming up crap.

So he tried to speak again-

"-Why did the Germans call them 'Panzers', Phil?"

But she beat him to the punch.

Glancing at her, she didn't look like she had even spoken, her eyes were glued onto her hook as she nursed it in her lap.

Blinking, he cleared his throat.

"Uhm, HUH?"

"For World War 2 you jerkweed," She snickered. "-'Panzers'? Why not name them for a designer? Or a manufacturer like airplane contractors did?"

A switch of gears, but, hey, it broke the silence.

"Uh... Well... The Germans, uhm," He still had a moment to clasp the new discussion "-They didn't name armored vehicles like we did. Panzer is short for the German term... That, uh... It literally translates to 'Tank.' In a poetic sort of way, I believe..."

"'Panzer' is for 'Tank' in German?"

"It's short for the word 'Panzerkampfwagen'," He chuckled. "-It means 'Armored Fighting Wagon'."

"Panzer... Kem... Kemp... Run that by me again?" She laughed lowly, pressing her palm over her forehead.

"-'Panzer' 'Kampf' 'Wagen', armored, fighting, wagon. Literally. Panzer is shortened of that."

"Ah. An elaborate name for a piece of junk?"

"Depends on WHICH Panzer you're talking about, Fox'."

"Well historian-boy, what about the Panzer II? THAT junker."

"-For its time, it wasn't a bad tank, Foxy... It was rendered obsolete by the rapid advancement of armored equipment throughout the war."

"-What about the Panzer IV?"

"-Again, not a bad tank. But many other platforms rendered it obsolete by greater durability, reliability, and fighting effectiveness."

"Yeah, that whole crap on 'Five for One' with the Tiger I versus Shermans thing? What of that?"

"Those stories are over-exaggerated and people who believed them are mis-informed," Phil said quite readily. "-The Tiger I may have had an gun, and YES, it may have been able to knock-out Shermans at a greater distance than likewise...

BUT, the Sherman could still destroy a Tiger at close range, which, as the war went on, the Germans found happening more and more often... AND... The later Sherman variants were better equipped to deal with armored fights than their priors."

Phillip would've lit himself a smoke if he DID actually smoke... But instead, he grinned heartily and finished the explanation as he turned into the exit ramp towards their destination.

"-Not to mention, the Tiger I guzzled gas like Mangle can down entire tea-barrels-"

"TEA! WHERE TEA?!"

Flinching from the outburst, Phil just raised a brow at the rear-view mirror to Mangle's excited expression from the backseat.

The whackjob chattered in disappointment and vanished under the passenger seat's rear in the back cabin. He rolled his eyes and continued.

"-And the thing couldn't stay operational. The Tiger I was plagued with mechanical issues the whole fragging war..."

"Like the Panther?" Foxy smiled.

"Exactly."

"Hmm. So what about the... 'Schauen, parkplatz' Tank, Phil?"

"The what?"

"Lookout, parking spot."

"OHSHIT!"

The Ford made a brief screech in a great buck towards the sidewalk, Phillip clenched his teeth, grunted at the sudden force on his beat-up leg, and slammed down on the brakes.

Foxy was still chuckled even when she was elevated out of the passenger seat slightly, and thumped back down amid her hysterics. The Mangle made a shriek-like noise and curled under his chair in the back.

Staring ahead at the sidewalk the ringed the exterior of the pizzeria, poor Phil wiped his forehead with his hand, put the car in PARK, and gazed out the side window to spot how miraculously, he had managed to swerve BETWEEN the parking-space lines amid all that.

Sighing heavily, he looked at the laughing animatronic beside him.

"You're not the ONLY one who knows about Google Translate, PHILLY." She teased.

"I read that in books..."

"SSUUuuuureeee you did..."

"I did!"

"Mmhmm." She hummed musingly, opening her side door.

"BOOKS!" He declared further, tossing himself out the driver's flank. "-No joke!"

"Ah."

"Aw man, you stink..."

Foxy stuck her tongue out at him as he went to open the rear passenger door, faltered to the sight of the layers of duct-tape, and hurried around the rear trunk to open the door that was still... Well, a DOOR.

Mangle loosely clambered out the second he flipped it ajar, and caused him to stumble as the whackjob used his hips and shoulders like ladder-rungs to reach his back.

The animatronic chattered appreciatively, nested her snout in his hair, and Phil only mustered up a annoyed grunt as response, slapping shut the door, and clicking the lock key on his chain. At that moment, the nighttime atmosphere gave them all they needed to examine the deathly overhang.

And indeed, the pizzeria never seemed so... LOOMING, before.

A giant box of blackened unknown and horror staring at them in the backdrop of the dusk, it looked truly, and haunted-wise stereotypically, frightening.

Shivering to the sight, Phillip checked his flank to notice the comedic smile Foxy held had melted away for a grim frown, and Mangle was growling in her throat above his head. They already knew the circumstances here, but this place was just evil.

It was so evil, that just eyeing it brought up your negative emotions in their extremes.

Phil decided to make a vow to himself, that when this was over, no matter the result, he would finance whatever immediate needs Matthew held, and he would personally burn this building down in any way he could.

It was horrid that he wasn't the only one thinking such.

"I'm going to kill him." Foxy stated. "-WE'RE, going to kill him. And once we do that, I want to burn it. The building, and everything in it."

"Probably the better way to go," Phil agreed.

"Phillip,"

"Hmm?"

"-Before we go in, just... Know that I..." The vulpine snapped her eyes shut, and ground her teeth. "-That I have... M-more, than just a 'Thing' for you... Okay?"

Phillip folded his arms, squeezed himself.

"I understand."

"Good."

-0-0-0-0-0-

Sifting through the filing cabinet with an anxious, impatient grunt, Matthew tossed aside a wad of old electricity bills that were nearing a decade of age, folded away a dirty binder filled with vacation photos that made him clam up, and took out a small roll of bills.

Thirty dollars in singles.

Most janitors would take it with a roll of the eyes once the boss turned away.

But as everyone on the property workforce knew, especially he, as the owner, Steven was a whackjob. The singles could matter another time.

Matt flicked off the rubber band, counted the currency with sifts of his fingers, and slapped the cabinet drawer shut before ringing around his desk, the garden chair in front of it, and making for the door of his office.

He turned the knob, shown the light within the room to dispel the soup of black that clogged the halls beyond, and shivered as he reached the lightswitch next to the door frame for the fixtures outside his abode.

As he touched the white pad with his finger, he heard the muffled, faint hiss of carwheels coming to a abrupt halt on the pavement of the lot, then settle, then the shift of a parked drive.

But no distant talking or greetings.

If Matt understood as little as he did about Steven, it was that he did not shut up near ANYBODY, especially Mr. Linn.

Phil was personable, so the guy was naturally drawn to his coworker in that sort of leech-like fashion... Why was he not all over Phil? More importantly, where were the shocked screams of seeing a walking vulpine animatronic stepping out of the passenger seat?

After all, Phillip wouldn't have showed up with Foxy and Mangle.

Something, from this little tiny hint he had just gathered, was very wrong.

"Phillip... Oh God, Phillip! PHILLIP!"

Matt swung past his ajar office door, punched the light switch to blare illumination into the hallway, and ran towards the dining area as fast as his aged body would let him.

He wheezed whilst his shoes clacked against the tile floor, managed to get halfway down the hall, and gasped louder, and sharper, than he had in a very long time. Matt felt a fear he hadn't allowed into his system since youth, irk the blood in his veins.

The flow went cold, and his muscles froze, locking him mid-run to lean against the lefthand wall as his path was physically bracketed.

Matthew coughed roughly into a fist, watched, wide-eyed, as a hunched titan used his imposing body to block the entryway towards the foyer of the pizzeria.

Sporting a hide of matted, purple fur, tears in a coat of organic mesh that exposed wires and inner mechanical/organic workings, the hare animatronic dipped two draping ears towards the old man, and grinned with a set of thick, molar-like fangs.

"Hey, Matt," Bonnie rasped. "-Where ya been lately?"

Breathing in drawn out husks, the rabbit folded two brawny arms over a barrel chest to grin hoarsely.

Matthew's mouth didn't work, he stood there, dumbly, hunched over, staring down a larger, stronger, and faster bio-mechanical murderer that was toying with him when the everpresent knowledge of his superiority, was blatant.

Bonnie waited there, patiently, unlike the quaking human, and grumbled, letting his arms swing down by his hips with a tiny creak of steel, the sound of a chain-link gate creeping ajar.

"You went mute, huh?"

"No. No... I'm just..." Matthew actually responded, between bated breaths of his aged respiratory system.

"Afraid? A tad surprised? Weak at the legs?" Bonnie listed with a low thrum, musing a moment after. "HUMANS, Pfft."

"W-Where are your comrades, Bon'?" Matthew queried, stepping backwards in his lean to the wall.

Bonnie matched his small retraction with a step forwards into the hall, plastering a smile on his toothy chops.

"Around, abound. Not letting ME in on the whole thing, I tell ya..." Matt continued to inch away as the animatronic felled his heels closer and closer, yet with the slowest of torturous motion. "-Just skip the chatter, old man."

Matthew stumbled back when the sliding, metallic hiss of claws swept from the hare's fingers, and blackened, blade-like nails slipped out of their top faces with a silvery clip of air. Bonnie flexed his digits and drew the sharp appendages against each other's sides.

The tiny slicks of iron reverberated down the hall, Bonnie kept a smile, horrifically excited for what twenty years had at least denied, the death of the old man.

"I'll make it quick, you've earned that."

"Suppose I have, Bon'... Suppose I have..."

"Then stop backing up if you believe that."

"I believe it..." Matthew reassured, feeling the hanging ambience of his encroaching office door. "I also believe Mr. Linn has a whole life ahead of him."

"-'Linn', eh?"

"Indeed. You know, the guard you can never seem to kill?"

"I take away the 'Quick' part of this, you rat."

"Butterfingers much?"

"Damn you!"

Matthew shoved into the door the second the rabbit surged forwards, paws outstretched, eight blade nails swinging like a breeze of daggers towards the fragile elder.

His office door swung inside, he tumbled through the frame, slammed it behind him in time to hear a satisfying **_CRUNCH! _**of Bonnie's nails breaching the wooden face of the entry with a spray of dust and chips.

The animatronic snarled like a wolf kept from meat after being starved, ripped out one set of digits, and clenched his other wrist to work out the opposite array from the wood. Bonnie tugged and wrenched his claw about, flinging sawdust, and shaking the old door profusely.

"DAMN IT, MATTHEW!" He barked, rearing back his foot, and planting it into the door with a deafening crack of splinters.

Inside the office, Matt watched the door start to split, right down the center, it was akin to a ball of Plato being tugged apart by a toddler's fingers, the rabbit wretched his nails free, growled, and applied both paws on opposite ends of the breaking wood.

He pulled with a groan of effort, the hinges chimed as the metal covers flanked off the door frame.

Matthew tumbled past the garden chair before his desk, knocked it over, pushed away his own seat behind the furniture piece, and tugged open the drawer he had relented in showing to Phillip.

He faltered, stared at the crime-scene folder he kept hidden beneath the old papers, sighed shakily, and was brought back to reality when his door bolted again.

**_CRACK_**

**_CRUNCH_**

"MATTHEW!"

The entrance to his office vanished in a plume of dust, the door fell into the room in two halves.

There was no time to think about right and wrong.

Matt needed to save himself, to save Phillip.

Reaching into the drawer, Matthew threw away the papers, the evidence folder, and retrieved the wad of plastic wrap he had doted on the last time Phil had entered his office.

_"-I-I have... So much blood on my hands... Mr. Linn. I have been... Trying so long to end this... THAT, evil outside this office, by myself. And at the end of my rope I realize, I need help." _

_The guard felt chilled blood when Matt flipped his vision to his employee like a scrutinizing warlord on some medieval battlefield._

_There wasn't much to say after that, and the old man just ran his palms down his face, wheezed a good breath, inhaled and exhaled, before leaning over the folder again to flip its contents. Phillip said and did nothing, seeing the prior photosheet move aside for a series of medical records; most likely the victims prior mentioned._

_That went away also, and beneath was a small, plastic package, its contents blurred by smudged wrapping._

_Matt glared, and looked to the guard, before swiping the plastic packaging away, and drawing forth a tiny note, which, strangely enough, was made of parchment._

Matthew crinkled the thick wrapping in his palms, offered a silent prayer to whoever, whatever, was listening, and felt his eyes narrow when the shuffling titan of iron stumbled through the haze obscuring the room's front.

Bonnie hacked uncharacteristically, waved a palm about, and glared at the desk with a bore array of teeth.

"-Stop moving and DIE!"

"I can't do that, you animal!" Matthew sneered, reached down, and clawed off the plastic with a rip of material, took the item once concealed.

"YOU HAVE NO CHOICE, RODENT!"

"I have a choice, and now-" Matthew held the equipment appropriately, curled back his thumb, and clicked the hammer with a press. "-So do you."

Matt felt his body stand rigid, still shaking, albeit, as he raised his wrist, and pointed a silver elongation into the rabbit's direction.

Bonnie actually looked... SURPRISED.

Feeling some measure of confidence Matthew stepped quickly to the side of his desk, kept his newest addition leveled with the animatronic's head.

"I'll admit, rodent... You've got balls."

"These weren't meant for YOU. But I will use them if necessary."

"You don't have it... The spark, you know... To KILL things, old man-"

**_CLACK!_**

The very dust in the room swirled in a miniature tornado, there was a blinding flash, a bark, not a human or non-human one, louder than any vocal either party could have mustered so fast.

The report of ignition echoed throughout the pizzeria's halls, Matthew's wrist flung backwards from the alien feeling of using such a tool after prolonged absence from its grip, Bonnie's head darted towards his ankle, which, in turn, jerked awkwardly.

There was a rip of punctured steel, the scream of a bouncing round, the metals and mesh by Bonnie's leg indented, and left a small, ragged tear out the back of his calf.

"AGH!" The rabbit grunted, stepped back, loosely on the wounded leg, backing out of the office quickly. "-You little shit!"

"The next one goes in your HEAD." Matthew snapped through gritted teeth. "-Back off, you dirty son of a bitch!"

"You think that'll stop me?"

"Not you. The bear. I have a spare magazine, but you're not worth the risk of expenditure."

Bonnie snarled, clearing the path for the old man, who boldly stepped into the hall, keeping the gleeming, polished surface, and cleaned barrel of the .357 Caliber Magnum directed at the animatronic's forehead.

Making his way to the foyer, he glanced over his shoulder, seeing the path unobstructed. Matthew kept backing away.

"He'll come back," Bonnie warned. "-Even IF that thing does what you think it will! HE'LL COME BACK!"

"-And Phillip can kill him again for me!"

The door to the lobby arched ajar, and slacked shut.

Bonnie huffed and panted, stared down at the hole in his leg, and screamed at the top of his mechanics' abilities, before punching the wall to his left, and dislodging a trio of tiles with a clack of impact.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Now the thing about being the newly promoted 'Demon Hunter' of the pizzeria, was the standing exclusion, at least so far, of anything DEADLIER, than a trio of rampaging man-eating mechanized freak jobs.

Just take a second to digest that.

DEADLIER, than killer robotic creatures that were stronger, faster, and more durable than any normal human.

What could be deadlier than that?

**_CLACK_**

"Holysonofabitch-wasthatagunshot?!" Phillip squeaked like a petrified field mouse did at the news of an encroaching tom-cat.

Leaping back a step on the sidewalk, Phil stared at the entrance to the building in horror, seeing some form of shifting shadowy movement coming from behind the glass doors. There was a loud yell, something else reported gruffly.

"Matt's in trouble... H-Hey! HEY! FOX'! MANGLE! Matt's in frigging troubl- HOLYSONOFABITCH-DEADBODY!"

Twice in a row.

New record he supposed.

Phil's legs scrambled backwards when Foxy stepped towards the van that had been parked between where his Ford had settled, and where Matthew's retro ride had ended its rickety travels.

She had gripped the wrenched handle of the right rear-hatch, tugged a coupling of times, and grunted in effort when it snapped off the white hull with a tiny screech of metal. Eyeing her friends, whose backs had been turned seconds ago, she threw the door aside...

-And nearly fell on her buttocks leaping back from the sprawled out corpse that had been unceremoniously tossed in a heap to the van's cargo hold.

"CRAP!" Foxy cursed, baring teeth to the bloody mess that at one point, she now recognized, had been a janitor of the pizzeria.

"HOLYSONOFABITCH-ISTHATSTEVEN?!"

"Philly! Me think Steven got bamboozled!"

"-Thanks for that, Mangle... That REALLY helps the terror!" The guard snapped sarcastically.

Mangle chattered in agitation atop his head, peered over his hairline to wince at the dead janitor, with a series of gaping wounds piercing his shirt, and subsequent stomach beneath. There was a hanging, torturous moment of silence that kept them all glued to their spots.

Foxy stood there, just... Drawing her eyes over the dead man with a series of emotions that she did not fully understand.

Phillip got a variety of spins from this.

Obviously, a no-brainer, he was scared shitless. Sure he had seen some pretty screwy stuff in his life, especially over the last week, but a fresh dead body? Negatory, he hadn't examined one of those yet.

His blood felt rather chilled, his mind raced, and the ability to determine a proper course of action for this event, slipped his mind gradually. His teeth chattered, and he had to clench the belt-line of his jeans to force his hands still.

Phil had never liked Steven, and, frankly, the guy was a douchebag.

But this was a bit much, no?

For the angry, mentally-incapacitated hick janitor that thought breaking things was funny? Murder didn't seem all that warranted for a weirdo.

However the bear and his freakshows didn't discern prey, it seemed.

"-I don't even-" Foxy flung her wrist and backed away from the body, clenching her jaws over her hook. "-W-What the hell is this?!"

"You tell me!" Phillip gasped. "-Are they outside?! Or inside?! F-Fox', we should help Matthew-!"

"Matthew could be DEAD!" She retorted suddenly, blaring a dangerous flame from her un-patched eye. "-If you go in there YOU'LL be dead too!"

"Is it a better option than staying out here?!"

"YES!-NO- I-I- I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!"

Foxy swung her vision from the door, to the van, to Phil, than to his car.

The poor security guard blinked rapidly, he clenched his teeth, reached up and chewed his knuckle, spun around and fidgeted at the building.

After all, where were the three killers? What the heck were they supposed to do?

"-I really wish Matt were here for this one..."

"OH-Why? So he could plow THIS plan into the ground too?" Foxy hissed. "-This is just great! GREAT! Really fab! He finally gets the sack to finish this fight, and then he dies! HA!"

"MR. LINN! GET AWAY FROM THE DOOR! DON'T GO INSIDE!"

Foxy's jaw slacked when the old man barreled through the front entrance of the building, waving his arms frantically at the parking lot as he cleared the small flight of stone steps, heaved tiredly, and finished his sprint too them.

Matt's shoes clacked from transitioning from the sidewalk to the pavement of the lot, he keeled forwards, supporting both grips on his knees, and coughed down at his lap.

Phillip shook his head in shock, grabbed Mangle atop his head, and arced his arms back to the place her on the ground before hurrying over to the gasping elder.

"Matt! Matthew, good God, what the hell's happening?!"

"M-Mr. Linn-!-" He hacked forcibly. "-Gah... Phillip! They were expecting us! We need to leave! We need to leave now!"

"-Boss I don't understand! I heard a gunshot and-!" Phil's lips slapped shut when Matt held the magnum in his grasp, handle first, in his direction, pointing back to the entrance doors.

"-I-I used-THIS... .357, packs a helluva punch, my boy!" Matthew laughed between breaths. "Ole' Bon' cornered me in the office... I'd been saving these magazines for the bear himself- but... But we'll make do."

"I-I-... Okay, hold the shit up," Phillip cringed. "-You've had a gun... This WHOLE time?"

"There are only nine more round, Phillip! We couldn't waste them on Freddy's comrades! This gun is the only way we're to kill him!"

"SAYS WHO?!"

"Says the laws of gravity and the unnatural!" Matt barked. "-He's too fast for even Foxy! We need to get him when he least expects it! We need too-!"

The man's eyes went wild, the magnum flipped in his grasp, and the business end jabbed over Phillip's shoulder.

The security guard froze like a block of ice, Foxy included, Mangle hunched to the street, gawking.

**_CLACK!_**

The magnum rang out the loudest crack any party, besides the wielder, had ever heard before. The air around the barrel pulled from the sheer force of the shot, Matt's wrist flung back, a spark of light caressed the darkness around them.

Then there was a snapping of plastics and metals, the grind of loose electrical power cut from wires, the static groan of a wounded monster.

Phil spun around to see the endoskeleton that had been creeping up on them manage two more steps from the shadows, its hands grasping at the sparking stump that was its headless-remains, fall on its knees, and clatter onto the ground.

The body whined and coughed soot, jerked, and grew still.

Foxy stood straight, felt her eye twitch, and spit over her side.

"-You know what screw-my life, I'm not even gonna try..." She mumbled.

"I think I just pissed myself a little." Phillip stated matter-of-factly, quaking from the gun going off so close to him, his mouth opened and closed, he reached down, yanked the front of his jeans forwards, and looked beneath.

"-I just pissed myself a little, yep. Yep yep. I hope you're...Uh..." Phillip jabbed a hand about the air. "-I hope you're all flippin' happy. Yep."

"Matty-kins got a boomer! YAY!" Mangle clapped two of her hands together excitedly. "-Can me try?"

"**NO**!" The guard, Matt, and Foxy, all yelped at once, earning a quivering lower lip from the reclining Mangle as she shrugged apologetically.

The old man wiped sweat from his brow, gestured to the soot-spewing remains behind them.

"-The bear's coming. We need to make a decision here, Phillip."

"W-What kind of decision?"

"-If we go inside, we enter their turf, their grounds... But we can end this if we catch them off-guard. Foxy's a master of hit-and-run tactics in those halls, Mangle can use the air-shafts and pipes, me and you-"

"-Could run in circles to distract the beast while we ATTEMPT to subdue them?" Foxy finished for him angrily. "-Doesn't sound team-oriented, Matt!"

"What choice otherwise, then?!" Matthew cried. "-We leave so they can FOLLOW us? Or send a mob of those THINGS?!" He jabbed the gun at the ruined endoskeleton.

"Don't you all understand?! He doesn't MAKE them! He CREATES them! They aren't material once they're destroyed! They are unholy constructs! Ghosts even! They aren't limited! HE'LL OUTLAST US!"

In the permeated thickness of the air after Matthew cried that out, a tiny, aluminum tint of clapping metal palms echoed about the parking lot.

Their faintness grew loud enough for all four beings to turn to the center of the yard, over Steven's body, behind all their cars, a single shape stepped forth from the belching shadows of the night to be barely illuminated by the street-lamps ringing the pizzeria.

"-And in the final phase does the truth unfold!" Freddy said jokingly, dropping his paws from their applause to his hips. "Humans really ARE predictable, Bonnie was actually right. Huh."

Sweeping his vision over the party, he grinned and tipped his hat with his right paw.

"Mr. Linn, we meet again. And- Matthew! Is that really you? T'as been some time, yes?"

"Some time to finally kill you, Freddy." Matthew said. "This ends tonight."

"Ah! But it most certainly does! To affirm otherwise is just an insult!" Freddy outstretched one of his palms, aimed to them, than he swerved his wrist, keeping the pads leveled with the dirty hull of Steven's van.

"-I'm actually a little relieved you unraveled the endoskeletons without a long, illustrious definition from myself," The bear casually explained, grasping his fingers at the vehicle. "-You know, though, it doesn't just effect ENDOSKELETONS..."

Matthew's hand shot out to both ends, grabbing Phil's and Foxy's opposite shoulders, he pulled them backwards towards the sidewalk, without much of a need to aid Mangle as, she had clambered up onto Phillip's shoulders again.

As the four companions kept backing away, Steven's van made a tiny hissing noise, like coolant escaping from a broken pipe.

Than the wheels sifted against the pavement, with four drags of rubber.

The undercarriage bucked, metal shifted and clanged together, something mesh-like tore, the vehicle quivered, akin to the aftershock of a mile-wide earthquake.

"-Well, Foxy, you did always have a thing for speed..." Freddy chuckled, lowering his paw as the van began to buck and jerk. "-I've developed a thing for... Brute force, if you will."

The glass of the vehicle shattered in a grouping of misty hazes, the trunk flapped open, the doors clacked ajar and the internal of the van crunched and meshed towards the center, appearing as if the Hulk from the comics were balling the insides of the vehicle with his hands.

"I introduce too you my finest ability," Freddy snickered over the noise, watching, when the white-exterior of the automobile flung away in a cloud of large shrapnel, not hitting any member of either side, but clattering away into the parking lot or side of the pizzeria

Foxy ducked when a piece of the side-paneling wracked off the girth of a streetlamp behind them.

The metal-workings of the van were warped, the muffler was in the wrong place, on the SIDE, not below the bottom, the tires and wheels had gathered in a cluster opposite the flank prior mentioned. Sparks and dust flew when the van began to unfold further.

The muffled spread to the west, the cluster of wheels the east, the workings of the undercarriage split in two to form makeshift, jointed limbs, the shattered skeletal structure of the van's doors plumed beneath them like makeshift heals.

The engine block, mounted in the chest-like center of the rising mass, roared to life and sputtered soot into the air through two pillars of blooming black.

As the mass of metal got higher into the air, it groaned, screeched and clacked, it began to appear... Humanoid.

Freddy laughed loudly, his paws flew downwards, two sets of nails swiping from their digit-tops.

Than the engine block of the van droned, in a blare of static that sounded deeper than the endoskeletons prior encountered. Two orbs of red plumed from the block's face-front, the muffler arm aimed downwards, putting the blackened pipe in the group of friends' direction.

Phillip managed to utter one thing amid the entire, newly developed mess.

"-Are you... Are you legitamately KIDDING me, right now?"

"Woo! PHILLY! The meanies got a tanshormer!"

That may not have been the right word, but it stuck.

Here came the 'tanshormer' killing machine.

And he thought he'd seen it all.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	25. Chapter 25

_**It sure took me long enough to update, huh? :/**_

_**Sorry about the wait with this one, it took me like thirty days or something, right? I dunno! Lolz.**_

_**But hey! I pumped out the longest chapter of the whole story! I hope anybody who reads finds the wait/written material ratio worth it, 'cause I got an 8,000 word chapter for you! Woo! **_

_**Alright, I'll give you a warning (NO DETAILS, YOU GOTTA READ, BROTHA! :P)- I think I made it a bit sad towards the end. Big plot shift, just putting it out there. **_

_**Tell me what ya think, peeps!**_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 25.

Mood Swings.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"When the video feed showed the back door of the warehouse ajar, it was at this minute that you realized-_**

******_-You f***'ed up."_**

**_-Writ 70 of Surveillance_**

All those times that Phillip had cast aside reality, and dozed off in the rear of the car when he was a kid, were memorable, probably just because the at-hand events made it so.

The differing, unique circumstances, certainly did not allow many other similar instances in his childhood to stand predominantly out, but the car rides resonated so heavily with him over the last two or three days.

It was strange- In a sense of putting that LIGHTLY, of course...

Putting aside, once more, the animatronic beasts, the tortured old man, some super-ex-cop he hadn't even met yet, and a evil demonic whackjob that had been causing horrors since people thought musket-rifles would solve the world's wars...

-Take all of that away, and note that Phillip had been living a sort of week, that had been so far from what his life had revolved around for several years now.

Friends, buddies, a woman, were something that Phil hadn't been able to bring himself to keep for longer than an initial event, or a few couplings of time. He'd been in a depression of sorts after his father died, had gotten over it, and found himself bathing in a ocean of negativity.

He started to feel alone, stuck in a rut only fixed by the small blend of artistic talents he had found drawing, and then, without need of any major employment, he came across this stupid, fate-felled advertisement in the paper.

A security guard.

What the hell, right? How did his life go from monotone grim, to DEADLY, mixed with the most exciting dares of his very existence, and sided by two creatures that had meshed with him near instantaneously, because their lives hadn't been much better than his recently, for LONGER.

Mangle may have been a freak-wad, and severely disruptive and... Mentally unstable... The list kind of expanded, but, no the point was, she was so much more happy around him, because she saw them as friends, buddies, partners-in-crime.

Which to that, Phil had no problem admitting, Mangle was a good friend, a little rusty with everyday logic, yet he wouldn't want any human like her watching his back in the few fights he'd had beside her...

Matthew, old Matt, the senior, the guy who threw him into the whole thing without meaning too. Matt had skeletons in his closet, he had A LOT of them... He was a good man that had been put in a horrible situation, and made some wrong choices...

Phillip could not hold him entirely at fault for his decisions. The Old Man was going to solve this problem. Phillip only wished he had helped that stopping earlier in this apparent span of TENS of years... He had only been in the shit a week.

There was this fight happening in and around a children's establishment, that no one, none at all, in the surrounding area, or the WORLD for that matter, knew about or understood.

It had been raging for so long... Before he was born.

His final companion, the third, had been stuck in it for around thirty years, THIRTY, older than him.

That point brought on the debate to his last friend... Foxy the hook-wielding, lightning fast, emotionally displaced, bipedal vulpine. A mouthful for a being unlike any other.

Foxy had the mind of someone who had been broken, or, was nearing that sort of status, and more evidently, someone several years younger than her immortal age granted. Foxy had to be around forty from the time she had been built, or created... Whatever the process was.

She had been fighting these monsters around her, a titanic Frankenstein bear, a killer poultry whale, and a murderous Trix-rabbit! Hold your tongue on saying that she was a whining wimp, because Phil understood she was a trooper.

There was so much physical damage inflicted on her unmaintained body, and those scars got there from WOUNDS, scratches from nails as sharp as pointed steel, fanged jaws that could snap bones, punches and kicks capable of shattering walls in a house...

All that time, the only person, the beings, she had to talk too, were a dysfunctional Mangle, an angry, confused Matthew, and a determined, uncaring Jensk. A mental patient, who was in the dark at that time, and two old men in young bodies.

It must have been hard.

Hell, that was an understatement.

Foxy went THROUGH hell, to the end and back, and BACK again.

It sounded so simple when you described it off the bat, but then, try magnifying that horrible life to thirty years or so.

THIRTY YEARS. It was longer than Phillip had been alive. Longer than he had physically seen and considered everything in the world his life had come near. Longer than he was an adult. Or a child. Or the two combined.

That was some scale, not easily respected by those less fortunate, or the ones who had not been the victims.

Foxy had been enamored with him, he was the first person, human or not, to talk to her in her entire life as another sentient creature.

So indeed, differing species or not, initial physical drawing or not, how the heck COULDN'T she start drooling over him? The reaction was almost involuntary. And if Phillip had been stuck in the same pit himself, he doubted his reaction would be any different to the knight in shining armor.

In a week his life shifted so dramatically.

He had been able to dodge most of this... FREDDY's, influence. The damn demon bear.

They had avoided him to give them all time to regroup, they fended off these endoskeleton apparitions he sent after them, they fended off the rabid chicken, AND the rabbit, even the bear himself on that misty roadway.

Despite the scars they all came out with, emotional or physical, their teamwork kept them all alive.

Teamwork against endoskeletons, animatronics, the demon bear, and the horrors of the past...

They'd surpassed it all.

What was saying they couldn't use that teamwork to surpass a ten foot tall killer transformer van?

"PHILLY! THE TANSHORMER HAS A WHEELY!"

-Scratch that, Mangle made it clear to remind him.

What was saying they couldn't use that teamwork to surpass a ten foot tall killer TANSHORMER, van?

It could've been the fact that this thing was tougher than anything they'd come up against prior.

"Oh shit!"

-Coupled with the fact it picked up a fifty pound scrap-heap that was the van's former rear wheel, and chucked it at him like an angry child flung a spit-ball at the teacher's chalkboard.

Those little brats were FAST with spit-balls.

Phil didn't even managed to react fast enough before someone ELSE reacted for him.

"PHILLIP!"

"-HOLY FU-OOAAAHHH!"

**_CLUNK_**

Phillip did not hear the horrible cracking sound the mashed wad of rubber and hub-cap made against the streetlamp he had been standing in front of, his vision was muffled under the tumble with a russet-furred savior.

Foxy flung her arms out, tackled him from the path of the flung debris where it gave off a upkick of dust and sparks, dented the center of the streetlamp with a metallic thrum, and bounced off into the darkness of the lot.

The killer van made a blaring, static-like rumble, angered at the miss, and jabbed the blackened end of its muffler-arm in their direction.

"Are you okay? Phillip? PHILLIP?!"

"I'm fine! Good lord already, I'm FINE!"

"-Get up!"

"Then get off of me!"

"-I TOLD YOU, YOU WERE A KNIT-PICKER!"

"WE'RE GONNA GET KILLED BY MEGATRON AND YOU'RE CONCERNED WITH MY TOUCHINESS?!"

"DAMN STRAIGHT!"

"WE NEED A TACTICAL SHIFT HERE, WOMAN! MOVE YOUR ASS!"

"I'LL MOVE MY ASS WHEN I FEEEEEELLLLL LIKE IT!"

Of course, neither party realized that as they had been screaming for the other to move, they had flipped themselves to full stands on the sidewalk, and were sprinting back to the front entrance of the pizzeria.

Subconsciously, perhaps, was the following action-set taken. Still, Matthew tried to call to them from where he and Mangle had scattered to hide behind the front hood of his van.

"MR. LINN! The muffler-!"

Foxy almost hollered back to shut the old geezer up, but then the towering mechanical monster made a terrible belching sound, the racket a beat-up muscle car made when someone throttled the gas from average speed to a hundred miles-per hour.

Phillip reached the top of the steps when he saw the beginnings of a black blotch of smog vomit from the muffler's pipe, disgorging a stinking cloud of disorienting soot.

The onyx vapor swallowed him and Foxy within a second, the van spewing it forth from its extended muffler-arm like a flamethrower onto the steps and front side of the pizzeria, the parking lot thudded as one of its heels advanced a single step.

Matthew grunted in panic, aimed the magnum he still held, and fired a third round, in total overall this night, that sparked to nothingness on the van's engine block.

If phased by the miniscule damage, the living vehicle did not show it, the muffler-arm relented briefly, the smog ceasing its waterfall from the pipe's mouth to drown the steps and the two on them. The monster peered into the dissipating black fog, like it was curious to the results.

Down on the steps, Phillip could not see the hunched over monster, he did not feel the ground quake again when it took another foot-fall towards him. In fact, Phil couldn't see, smell, or hear anything at all.

The toxic soot blinded him, burned his eyes and literally stripped them black, even when he knew they were open.

His hearing, his smell, were dumbed down to the point he felt like he was experiencing shell-shock. You know, when you saw the scenes in war movies. The best a non-veteran could sum up. Pity.

No matter the effectiveness of his later description, he was completely stunned, he fumbled with the entry to the door, lost it, and spiraled on top of the stone steps like a drunkard. His arms flailed, legs kicked, there was a falling sensation, and the feeling of pin-prickling overtook his back and shoulders.

Phillip did not recover from the mist for another good ten minutes. But by that time, Foxy was already frantically rolling off her collapse on the sidewalk, literally feet from him, to stand ready.

"Matty-kins! Why no policeman show up!"

"Yeah MATT! Where the hell are the other humans?! Kind of hard to-" Foxy's speech cut off, she threw herself with two graceful arcs of her legs.

A sidestep that carried her further than a human could leap, she shifted across the sidewalk, and a metal, rusty fist cracked the concrete she had moved away from, coming down in a directed slam, the knuckles kicked dust and pebbles from the impact.

**_CRUK_**

The van droned, ripped its knuckles from the concrete, and shook the appendage with whines of poorly oiled metal to dislodge clouds of airborne debris.

"-IT'S HARD TO MISS A GIANT TIN-MAN!" Foxy shouted in a finish for her prior words. "How does nobody see THIS?!"

"It's Freddy!" Matthew barked. "-That bastard is using his powers to keep the area concealed! I know it!"

"Smart man, Matthew, too smart, ya know?"

"-No!"

Matthew spiraled right as Freddy reached a grimy, encrusted paw in his direction, nails unsheathed, teeth bore, a wicked grin plastered on his aged face.

The magnum almost finished its direction, barrel inches from jabbing to the bear's head. Instead, it clattered onto the pavement when Freddy's other claw rammed out, and twisted it fiercely from the man's grip.

Matthew cried out in pain from the contact, the concrete beneath his shoes vanished, he felt weightless, the palm reaching for him before gripped his shirt and collar, the animatronic lifted him to face-to-face level with no issue.

"Matt, Matt, Matt... You just-You just didn't get it! Why didn't you get it? It was on the wall! Written! Painted! IT WAS EVERYWHERE!"

"-B-Because-!" Matthew grumbled out between struggles, his wrinkled hands tugging at the bear's wrist. "-Because I HAD to stop you!"

Freddy grinned heartily, and swept his paw around him.

"-Bad news," He grunted, smugly. "-You failed!"

The monster scoffed him.

"-You haven't tried for a decade! You come back! With a vigor! A new man with you! Ya revved up ole' Foxy! AND YOU STILL FAILED! Ha! It's laughable, Matthew! You, YOU, YOU YOU-Are a failure!"

Matthew stopped struggling when the animatronic jabbed a nail in his face for each raised pitch in his statement.

"How's the blood on your hands feel, Old Man? Slippery right? HA!"

The blood on his hands...

It felt- Nay, HE felt...

-He felt like failure itself.

Freddy was right.

His life was repeating itself. He couldn't overpower this demon.

It was over.

Freddy brought his other claw away, flicked the nails to a readied position.

"Jig's up, rodent."

He was right. The jig was up.

"-Y-You've gotten me..." Matthew grunted, finding it in himself to let a tear draw down his wrinkled cheek. "-I understand. I'm ready."

"-Too die? Don't worry, I hear it's the trip AFTER the tearing, that's quick."

"-Not this second, Fred'."

"You have no choice."

"I do-" Matthew reared his head back, and screamed. "-MANGLE! HELP!"

"MATTY-KIIINNNNSS!"

"Oh, my aching head..." Freddy rolled his eyes, and, right before the flinging mass of metal landed, he finished his intention. "Still late on the ball, Matt."

**_SCHK_**

"-AGGH! GOD-AGH!"

Freddy was unable to relish his final victory for long, Mangle clambered over his shoulders, his head and back. Fists and feet came down in every direction, pummeling the bear with precise, forceful hits.

A set of jaws tore off the remnants of his left ear, returned to clamp over his hat and scalp, something broke and flittered into his internals from his right shoulder-blade.

"-PEST!" He cursed, swinging his hand in a backwards, up-angled strike, he swatted Mangle's head like a punching bag, sent the animatronic hurtling into the hood of Matt's van.

She made several thuds and clangs, tumbled about the van's top. Mangle chattered in surprise, her limbs spread out, and carried her away like a spider when Freddy reared back, and brought both of his fists down on the van's face where she had been knocked too.

The vehicle shifted in its park, steel screamed, coolant hissed from the damaged engineblock, and the front tires popped from the force into the pavement.

Freddy cursed in defiance, pulled back from his lean to the automobile, and went to pursue the other animatronic.

**_CLACK_**

But then, Matt shot him.

The bullet entered his ribcage with a flash of sparks, bounced around his internals, and left his gut in the form of a ragged, golden stumped casing. Feddy made a gasping sound, doubled back, and grabbed at the hole in his body with shock.

He was damaged.

That was supposed to be impossible. He should have finished the Old Man off. Made sure of it.

Glancing down with a sneer, he saw Matthew grin in small victory where he curled in wounding on the ground, red gathering under his gut, the magnum was held aloft with a shivering, raised grip.

"-Ha ha..." The man weakly muttered. "-GOTCHYA."

"-You RAT!"

"-BANZAI!"

"-Sod off you damned freak!"

Freddy swung again, but Mangle pushed her head out of the brown arc, wrapped her pipes around the forearm, and used the finished swing to gain momentum, catapulted herself in a loop around the bear's flank, onto his back again.

Freddy hollered and grunted, stumbling away with the mess of fists and heels hitting him from all directions.

The fighting distanced its noise from Matthew's prone form on the pavement. He sighed, pained while he did so, and rested on the cold concrete, putting the magnum down on its side by his hip. He felt warm where Freddy's nails hit his stomach.

The warmth spread to all parts of his torso still pressed to the ground.

He waited.

For either Phillip, or Foxy.

It was them, or the last option which would find him before oblivion. He prayed Phillip got there before the one in black. And Matt knew that was on the way.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"-Phillip?! Phillip!" Foxy kept searching for her friend as she basically preoccupied the van by letting it take swings at her.

Her eyes darted faster than her arms and legs worked, her speed allowing her to stay ahead from the bulging fist the monster used as a club. Impacts riddled the concrete she sped across, several indents in the surface marked abound.

"-DAMN IT!" She cursed, finding herself in a frantic panic, she flung the weight of her legs back, leaping nearly a foot into the air, the blindingly fast blur of the monster's gripping fingers swung through the dark space she kicked away from.

The thing was too big for her to take head on, she probably would have to find a way to get on, or better yet, on TOP of the creature.

Foxy backpeddled a little, the van cast its engine-block midsection about, the red orbs glowering angrily, and frustrated blares leaving its body. The thing had lost her in the dark, and, too no surprise, because as she rechecked, it was obvious why.

The two lamps on either side of the door had been knocked out, a thick, healthy shadow obscured the steps and spaces around it.

This was cover.

It was just like her Cove... The dark would conceal her.

Foxy grinned inanely, putting aside the dread in her system for Phil's whereabouts for a moment.

The penny dropped for her answer to this conundrum, and by the time the van had an inkling of where she was around the blotchy steps, it experimentally swatted its fingers through the dark, and hit nothing.

The monster grumbled, leaned closer, completely oblivious to the animatronic it was trying too, but could NOT see, and its creator, who was tangled up with Mangle.

Freddy just grunting, barking and cursing, understanding well the only reason Mangle was still in one piece, was because she was slithering all over his form, like someone trying to rid themselves of a harassing horsefly, the culprit couldn't be pinpointed and destroyed.

Except, this HORSEFLY, if that, had fists and feet, and a set of jaws that tore at the bear's head.

From her crouch by a fern growing in the small amounts of grass around the building, dividing it from the lot's sidewalk, she feared now not only for Phillip, but for her friend as well. She felt horrible she couldn't help her.

Foxy rolled her jaw, toyed with her hook, and glared from the blackness at the hulking monstrosity Freddy had conjured up with his voodoo-nonsense.

If she was going to get to him, she had to get through THAT first.

Just like she had done to Bonnie and Chica when she had defended herself in the Cove, she sized the foe up, head to toe, and back again.

Of course the size difference made her glances much more wide and broad, but in the rundown, it was the same gist. The mechanics of the vehicle it had been born from jutted and junked all over the thing's legs and arms, Foxy could use them to climb.

If she could mess up the engine block... That just HAD to destroy it.

It was her best chance.

"-Time to go for it, huh...?" She muttered to herself sadly. She had wanted to try that 'Mouth Thing' as she had been dubbing it, with Phil again before she actually jumped into the final fight.

After all, this mechanical horror was capable of tearing her in half the second she made the slightest error.

She sighed and wrung her fist over the mounting of her hook.

Now or never, if Phillip were dead, the truth would come later. No matter how horrific that truth would be.

She had to assume he was trying something like her, hiding, relocating, maybe he got dazed and was recovering. Positivity.

This freak was going down, hard.

"Scrap-heap." She growled, slinking out from her hideaway, the animatronic bit her tongue, extended her hooked-arm, and leapt at the van's right leg.

Immediately, the beast saw her and swung with a reactive backhand of its bulky, metal fist.

Her eyes went wide, time almost slowed as this wall of mass just came from her flank straight towards her.

All the years of hit and run tactics had trained her, in a sense, though, the other animatronics had tried so many things to get the better of her...

Bonnie even tried bolting sheets of aluminum to himself one night when he sought her out for a fight.

If that didn't tell you anything about the desperation the others had when she was on the defensive in that damn Cove... She didn't know what would.

Foxy wasn't about to let some shithead who just happened to be BIG, swipe her away like an insect.

"HA!" Foxy grunted, tucking her arms and legs inwards, her frontal charge in mid-air was extended as her balled form hurtled inches ahead of the passing forearm.

She heard a rush of air behind her, her tail twitched mid-roll from the inch-close disturbance.

**_CLANG!_**

Her hook tugged, she felt resistance, and her feet were dangling below her.

Looking down, the parking lot was higher than usual, she was near the height of the pizzeria's roof, the monster was groaning angrily, and upon glancing back up, she saw her hook was imbedded in a slab of pipes wringing around the monster's plated hide.

She grinned toothily, brought her claw up, and clasped it next to the hook.

The monster jerked the face of the engine-block all over to view its torso and shoulders, it sighted her, the muffler-attachment brought its pipe to bare, and sprayed a viscous cloud of poison over its own waist-line.

Foxy gasped, pulled on her paw and hook, she catapulted in a parkour-styled, grip-thrown leap from one place on the monster's hip, to another grip on its rib-section, made from the outer hull of the van.

**_CLANG!_**

Her hook impaled the remnants of the car's lefthand mirror and door-hinge, shattering a small jagged plate of glass with a tiny shower of translucent crystals, that vanished below her.

The smog that the beast let off plumed away by its hip, it reaffirmed the aim, raised its underarm, and fired again.

Yet Foxy threw herself higher, and the toxins bathed its torso for nothing.

The automobile-spawned creature was livid, it grumbled and made droning shrieks, Foxy kept slashing into its hide with her hook, using it like a climbing-pick, she clambered up its spinal section, directly behind the engine.

Up close, the smell of coolant and gasoline mixed with... Rotting flesh, of all things.

Foxy gagged as the rumbling machinations of the block screamed in her face, oil leaked from rivets and crevices in the metal, steel creaked and groaned as the monster moved its arms and legs, stumbling in place to get the intruder off of itself.

Now that she was here, she didn't really have anything to destroy the block all at once...

"-W-WEELL-CrraaaaAAAAPPPP!" She cursed, swinging about roughly when the van shook itself like a dog, sending ragged debris bouncing all over the parking lot, making its body clank and clunk in all manners.

Holding herself steady with her hook, Foxy just held on, and she called out the first name she could think of.

"PHILLIP! PHILLIP HeeeeEEELLLLLppppp!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

When the toxins hit him, all his senses were blocked.

Sight, smell, hearing.

It was understandable he knew twice over how much he needed to avoid that stuff from the monster's muffler-arm.

However, the sensation of being poked by hundreds of pines didn't seem like such a side-effect to come with being hit by makeshift, demon-spawned mega-tear gas, if you know what he meant.

So, Phil's eyes jutted open, crossed and looked around when it was evident he COULD look around, he gasped, sputtered, and shook his arms in an attempt to stand up.

Phillip heard rustling all around him, a leaf fell on his face, and he screamed like a woman in one of those old 1940's horror films, thrashing about in whatever evil held him in place.

Of course, one would never admit they were that afraid of a fern, a bush.

And that was exactly what, you know, HELD him right now.

Growing still, looking at his dirtied shirt and hoody, he flicked a beetle that was crawling on his stomach with a disgruntled sigh.

He must have tumbled off the top of the steps into the bushes on each side of the walk to the door.

Seeing the shadow around him, it took a few seconds to discern the metallic hulk that rattled and threw-about behind the girth of the stone steps, and the metal railing he faced.

"PHIiiiiLLLLlliiiiipppPPP!"

...

His brow shot so high he thought it'd fall off his face.

Why did Foxy sound like she was on a ride at Six-Flags?

"-F-Foxy...? Where-"

His question was answered by the droning groan of the van monster that had put him here in the first place, as its body tumbled by in a panicked spin, and flopping around on the back of its neck, was none other than the same animatronic fox.

Phillip dropped every curse he'd heard in his life, kicked, and rolled, until he tumbled out of the bush with a tear of leaves and jerk of twigs.

He ran forwards, trailing a path of fluttered leaves and general plant-garbage.

"FOXY!" He shouted, immediately regretting doing so when a pillar of metal slammed in front of his face.

**_CRK!_**

Dust flew from the concrete of the side-walk, the panel cracked and a pebble flew off his forehead.

"-CRAP!" He belted, falling on his backside, and coming to see that this pillar, was actually the monster's left leg and foot.

The engine-block, centered by two burning orbs of red, angled down at him briefly, and then swung away again as the monster kept thrashing itself to get rid of Foxy.

Seeing the enemy gain distance from him, Phil cast his head around to find something, ANYTHING, that could hurt the ramshackle titan.

"-Oh no..." He muttered. "-Where do- Where the hell do I-?!"

"Mr. Phillip Linn!"

"Matt?"

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

"-Wait you're not-"

"MOOOVEE!"

Phil's shadowed vision, locked in the dark of the lamp-absent sidewalk, vanished in the brightest light he'd ever seen.

While the voice sounded a bit like Matthew, it was old and all, it was different, had an accent to it, and the man was shouting at the top of his lungs from behind the lights.

As it turned out, when Phillip threw himself back near the same bush he'd escaped from, those beams were from the front face of a car. A red, beat-up, run-down convertible that had a sticker underneath the outdated inspection sign, reading (THE LAW).

Phillip had no time to examine the vehicle further, because after it drew up a ragged trail of dirt across the grass, down the sidewalk, it kept going until it drove straight into the giant van-monster's right calf.

**_CRACK_**

**_WHIIIRRRRRRR_**

A horrible scream of metal, a thud of a dented trunk, breaking of glass and cry of burning tires, the red car had the appearance of an accordion hitting the metals of the van's leg, similarly mauling the material of the monster's body there.

The foot dented strangely, most of the calf blew off in the impact with a cloud of steam and soot, sparks showered the afterglow, and the van beast howled deeply, emitting another shrill report of iron as it fell to its opposite knee, the destroyed leg draping backwards into the mess of the red car.

"J-JENSK! NO!"

Phillip whipped away from his stare to the spectacle to follow the voice that hollered, and saw something that made his heart drop.

"Matt... Boss-BOSS!" He cried, seeing the laid-out mess that the Old Man made on the red-tinged pavement near the front wheel of his van.

Phil's shoes clacked on the pavement as he jolted to a sprint, running for his coworker's sprawl on the ground.

"-Matthew! W-What happened?!"

"-F-Freddy..." Matt wheezed from below.

Phil's lip twitched, he heard the bear cursing from here, looked over the top of Matthew's ruined van to see him unable to expunge a flailing mess of metal tumbling about his head and shoulders.

Mangle had gotten too him.

"That son of bitch."

"-P-Phillip... Come down here..."

"-Matt! Boss hold on, we'll call an ambulance! Where are you-" Phillip saw the pool of blood gathering beneath the senior's lay. "-Oh God..."

"Phillip listen... Listen to me, please. Phillip, I'm dead."

"You're not! Don't say that-"

"I'M DEAD!" Matthew wheezed harder, silencing the security guard.

The older one held a final spark in his eyes, he shakily passed another breath, and held his hand out. Phillip held it in both palms, squeezing, he blabbered out nonsense.

"-M-Matt, I'll help you-! I will!"

"Not like this... Mr. Linn."

"-W-What...?"

"Mr. Linn, I've been run through. I should be dead right now..."

"-W-Well you aren't! Matt, c'mon! Stay with me here!"

"-Phillip I accept that... That I will die... You-can't call help... Freddy... The others, the disaster it would cause..."

"Matthew, why hasn't anyone heard the fighting?! The giant Fighting-Robot over there?!"

"There are... Supernatural forces at work here, Mr. Linn... No one can here all this besides us..."

"I don't understand."

"Me neither!" He chuckled weakly. "-Never have!"

Phil clenched his hand tighter and smiled.

"-Phillip, you have the allies, the knowledge... The layout of the place... And-" Phil's hands parted, Matthew's trembling fingers depositing the freshly loaded, blood-stained magnum into his palms.

Phil turned the gun in his grip, held it in one hand and re-took Matt's.

"-No, no no, I can't-!"

"-You have too, you're the only one to stop this..."

"Matthew I can't-!"

"YOU CAN, you will... I involved you in this horror... I promised to see you live through it."

"How can you if YOU are dead?"

"-Wherever we go after."

"I... Matt, boss..."

"-Phillip. Save them. Where I couldn't."

"I..."

Matthew's grip wasn't there anymore.

Phil's face tightened, his brows jerked, eyes moistened.

"-I will." He choked.

"..."

"Matt?"

There was no response.

The hand slid from him, and Phillip stayed knelt.

A week had passed, there were two creatures that needed his help, and a trove of other super-powered beings trying to kill him.

All in a week, aided by the words of Matt's counsel.

And now his boss wasn't there anymore.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Foxy hadn't seen the car skidding towards her tumbling-top-mount on the back of the van creature, she'd been too busy avoiding planting her rapidly-jerking, swinging head into the metal before her.

The monster was thrashing particularly forcefully in the last moment before the impact, and all she heard was the screech of tortured steel, dragging tire rubber, and crunch of crushed chassis.

The ankle and calf of the monster blew apart and sulked away from the hit, sending the groaning hulk falling to its opposite knee with a thunderous impact of cracked pavement and thudding titanium. The engine-block coughed some soot in her face, and she coughed and sputtered.

Keeping her hook and claw dug into a flap of metal shielding the rear of the block, she spat out the contents of her dried mouth behind her, craning over the back of her assailant.

As she did so, she saw the smashed vehicle that had plowed into the rear of the beast.

Her eyes went wide, tongue still half-draped from her prior sputter.

"-Jensk?"

"FOXY!"

"Phil?"

They were the size of dinner plates when she saw the same guard running past Matt's damaged van, waving his arms up at her as he neared the kneeling monster.

She smiled broadly, almost leapt off from her perch to tackle the stupid human- But then she remembered that she atop a MONSTER, and this was the only vulnerable spot. Might as well stay a bit.

"PHILLIP!" She snapped. "-Where the hell were you?!"

"-Greasy here hit me with the-" Right as Phillip started to explain, the titan jerked the business end of the muffler in his direction once more with a whir of metallic movement.

Phil stopped mid-run, almost tumbled on his face, and stared into the blackened pipe with a set jaw.

"-Muffler... Yeah, he hit me w-with that... Thing, yeah-OHSHIT!"

"PHILLIP! GET OUT OF THE WAY!"

"Mr. Phillip Linn! Catch!"

Right as Phillip went to roll, most likely in vain, from the throwing smog that would soon belch forth, that same older voice, similar to Matt's, echoed out into the night.

Flinging his vision to the smashed, red convertible, an object flew straight from the window, cutting through the air with tiny howling loops, like someone tossed it.

He never knew what kind of hand of fate possessed him at that moment, because when Phillip was a child, he absolutely was ATROCIOUS, at softball, so catching, was never his strong-suit. But Phil's palm extended, and wrapped digits around the falling piece, no problem.

**_CLINK!_**

A cylindrical, cigar-shaped mass of rusty metal landed in his grasp, dead center.

Phil pulled the item for inspection, jerking in surprise when Foxy screamed out in utter anger, ripped her hook from the imbed she had in the van's hide, and dove the sharp end into a crook on the engine-block's top.

The monster reeled with a hissing groan, stumbled on its smashed ankle, twisted the cap of its scrap knee with a cloud of sparks on the pavement, the muffler-arm shot away from its point in his face, and spewed a cloud of smog into the air above the monster, harmlessly, away from him.

The soot shot out, dissipated into the night air, lost amid the black, and horrid thuds, rumbled of the anew flailing the van made.

Its hand grappled at the space above its engine-block, missing the vulpine by only inches when she compressed her chest and belly in an effective duck.

Phillip started to move closer again, obviously, apprehensive of his ability to help taking the metal-monster down, he looked back at the object he'd caught.

The red convertible shifted in its wrecked state when the beast's foot nudged the caved-in hood, it scraped on the lot's pavement, further confusing him as too how whatever occupant inside, was still alive after all that.

However, the guard was transfixed by the object tossed by this mystery man.

It was a pipe, something you'd see in a boiler-room or lining the walls of a network tunnel below a foundation, tied off on both ends with melted, adhered plastic caps, a fuse draped from the top cap, and when Phil shook the thing, it made a sloshing, hollow sound.

"What the... What is th-?"

"-That's a bomb, a pipe bomb, Mr. Phillip Linn."

"Who the heck?!" Phil's head looked back and forth, and the speaker was no evident. "-J-Jensk?"

"Mr. Phillip Linn, Matthew's firearm," The voice indicated. "-Get the beast's attention. Aim for the muffler."

The young man's eyes narrowed, he looked down to the pocket of his hoody where he had stuffed Matt's pistol and the extra rounds he hadn't chambered into the barrel.

"Aim for the mouth." The ghostly messenger confirmed. "-Go! Quickly!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Foxy kept tugging, and tearing, flailing the arm with her hook, shredding the metal at the rear of the engine-block asunder with flings of shrapnel and sparks, chunks of steel flung away until her hook came back dirtied with engine oil.

She held on to the beast with a disgusted look, examining the engine quickly, she saw where the breach had been made.

One of the pistons lining the mutated machine's sides were ripped off, exposing a mesh of wires and parts that still pumped without their proper parts and connections, black sludge seeped out of the ragged, shifting mess like a scabbed wound.

The van monster rumbled, she gasped in her shocked gawking, lowered her head as the thing's hand whizzed above where she had been leaned up too.

She wouldn't be able to stay atop the construct much longer.

"-DAMN IT!" She cursed, swinging her hook again, she tore off another piston next to the ruined one she ripped off, sending a spurt of oil into the air, and making the monster moan louder than it had so far.

The block was like its head. She was tearing its cranium up.

**_CLACK!_**

She heard a familiar popping sound.

The beast cried out again, and the thrashing, the throwing, the gripping hand, all of its efforts to get her off its head, ceased. There was a bursting crack of stressed metal, a hissing sound of dislodging gasses, her vision turned black when soot invaded the space around her.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Mr. Phillip Linn, there is a lighter in your pocket."

"-No there isn't!"

"Yes there is, check for me."

"-I'm telling you there is not a-Holy-hell a lighter!"

As Phil went to argue with the invisible man more, his hand did indeed clench the opposite pocket of his hoody from where he had retrieved the gun, and came back with a freshly filled lighter.

The tiny device was painted drab red, had three letters written on its side in smudged sharpie marker, and when Phillip flicked the hammer, the cap clicked back, and a tiny pillar of brightness was born from the top nozzle.

He watched the flame like a godsend.

"How... How is this possible? Where did this come from?"

"Mr. Phillip! The muffler!"

His eyes jerked away from the ghostly lighter, seeing the thrashing form of the van monster angling in his direction.

From on the ground, he saw Foxy tearing something with her arms, her motions gave that much away, and she was doing it quickly and rapidly. It couldn't have been that pointless, because it driving the beast insane.

Yet without the opportunity to slake its pain on the one actually INFLICTING it, the monster saw a chance to take it out on an ally of its foe.

And that target was the little security guard near the pizzeria's front.

The ground quaked under a quick step towards the human, than it shook when the monster dragged the ragged blow-out that was its ankle across the pavement in a mess of sparks and kicked debris. At first, the metal hand grabbed in Phil's direction, and then, with a sweep of its arms, the van aimed the muffler at him for a third instance.

The blackened pipe jabbed towards him, smog trailed in a thin vein from its burned top.

Phillip didn't even blink, to give the monster a second more of opportunity.

He had never fired a gun in his life, much less HELD one.

Whatever entity was aiding him, obviously aided also, in this test of marksmanship.

Phil snatched up the .357 from his pocket, aimed the barrel ahead, and lined the silvery, polished aiming peg towards the muffler's pipe, which was close enough, that he could see the dark interior of the poisonous tank.

He blinked rapidly, exposed his teeth, and twitched his finger on the trigger, initially not realizing the amount you actually had to PULL on the device to get the weapon to fire.

It surely wasn't like the movies, he'd give it that.

"-I-I- I can't-!"

"PHILLIP! FIRE!"

"-Alright! ALRIGHT! I'LL DO IT-!"

**_CLACK!_**

His wrist felt the greatest thrust backwards than any force he had ever experienced in his life.

There was a flash, a bang, the .357's top faced his direction as the gun kicked back with such force, he saw the round fly briefly in the night air, in the form of a tiny comet, that ended its travel in the face of the muffler pointed at him.

When the round entered, a plethora of happenings occurred all at once.

Firstly, it looked like someone set off a clump of firecrackers inside the tank of the muffler. Pretty bright, but silent.

Then there was a clanging noise, a really big flash.

A millisecond later, the muffler split all down its sides and top and bottom, akin to a tin-can in the microwave.

**_BANG!_**

It burst in BLACK fire, smog poured out into the air, onyx flame licked about like a rampaging hydra, plates of rusty metal flew away in all directions, the monster SCREECHED, flung its stumped remains of an arm away, and fell on its knees.

The earth shook, metal crunched, dragging amber burned under the caps when it cracked the pavement.

Again, the beast knelt before the human, a black cloud of burning oil licking and curling over a ragged mess of debris on its ranged-weapon, the entire arm eviscerated in a explosion that nearly deafened Phillip.

The engine-block, the torso, keeled down to the pavement below, the other arm slapped onto the concrete to prevent the beast from falling on its face.

On its heaving back, Foxy waved her paw about her head to clear the smog that orbited the creature like a miniature hurricane. Phillip understood what the plan here was. Flicking the pistol's safety, he stowed it in the same pocket, reached into the opposite.

He glanced at the pipe, then the lighter, and flipped the head to light a new flame, ignoring the tiny bit of white-noise that emanated in his ears from the destroyed chain-reaction.

"You've got it, Mr. Phillip Linn," The voice nudged somewhere behind him. "-Toss it."

The fuse crackled, a tiny plume of steam following the traveling burn.

Phillip indented his brows, flipped closed the lighter, looked up at Foxy, and reared back.

"FOXXXYYY! CATCH!"

Foxy cast her vision through the haze to him, cocked her head in non-understanding though her exhausted effort, and saw the flinging sheen of dull metal flipping towards her through the air.

She clenched her teeth, reached up.

She caught the pipe with unnatural efficiency.

**_CLINK_**

"-GAH!" She snapped, nearly losing her balance on the back of the monster. She reclined, and gazed at the pipe.

Examining the surface, the plastic caps, the fuse, she breathed heavily, and called back.

"What the shit am I supposed to do with THIS?!"

Phil's jaw slackened, he reddened his face with a impacted palm.

"Oh dear..." The ghostly aid mumbled. "-I can't believe she forgot what those look like."

"-You AND me, pal," Phillip grunted. "-YOU SEE THE FUSE?"

"The fuse?! What fuse-Oh, that fuse. Oh... OH, OH! OH CRAP!"

"Plant it!"

Foxy darted her stare between the young man and the apparent explosive he'd tossed her, than she eyed the oil-gurgling remnants of the two piston-parts she'd torn off the engine's side.

The vulpine animatronic heaved bravely, reared back, and slammed the butt of the pipe into the seeping bubbling-mass of sludge.

**_CLUNG_**

It stuck out like an alabaster gull in a tsunami of black hell. The fuse got shorter, the pipe started to sink into the lubricant.

If the monster was aware of the impaling doom, it did not make any further efforts outside of the exhausted heaving. Foxy snarled, stepped onto the top of the block, ripped out her hook with a flash of ragged white.

Her legs bent, she kept her balance, and catapulted herself off of the van's highest point.

She sailed for a whole five seconds, arms extended, and ended her travel on a magnificently, ironically placed, makeshift cushion. And that poor cushion was Phillip Linn himself. All he saw was a russet blur fly towards him, and then his world devolved in a giant roll.

Several 'Oofs!' and 'Aghs!' came from the two parties, their limbs wrapped, shielding their faces and bodies from the rolling on the grass dividing the pizzeria from the pavement.

Foxy slid atop of the human in a final roll, she landed with her knees on either side of his hips, threw her palm out to steady herself, and dug her hook into the ground to stop the motion of their fall.

When it was all said and done, she shrugged off the aching discomfort from the physical impact, breathed heavily, her chest rising and indenting, to stare wordless at Phil's scrunched up face.

Still wincing from the fox-missile he'd been hit head-on with, the guard opened his eyes, unclenched his teeth, and blinked silently.

She lost cohesion with her mouth again.

But for once, so did he as well.

Then when they both got the words for the other set and ready to shout out...

-The fuse on the makeshift pipe-bomb finished burning.

And the mutated van, 'tanshormer' monster, burst into a controlled bloom of orange, yellow, white pedals ringed and laced with black. In an explosion that shook the entire forest, and, had there not been supernatural forces at work, would have been seen in every town in the area.

The air seemed to tug from the gravitational pull of the burst, flames and black shrapnel flew in all directions, the monster's limbs folded and melted onto the pavement where the torso imploded. Screams of metal, rips of steel, booms of ignition...

Foxy drowned most of it out when she buried her head in Phil's hoody, and he likewise, stuffing his face into her chest.

They clenched the other as the explosion kept going, howling into the night.

It dragged on and on, and Phil felt his body tense under the threat of being hit from flying debris.

It felt like a nuclear warhead had been dropped, all muffled by the fabric of Phillip's clothing, and the fur of Foxy's hide.

Hell on Earth right there.

Yet it all disappeared.

And it all disappeared in a sheer grouping of seconds.

HALF the time, it took to finish tearing itself apart.

The mini-earthquake subsided, the hot-air that blasted around them grew cool again, a small hiss of burned steel cooked in the ambience, bits of debris clacked and rung every now and again.

However the main show was over.

Phillip glanced from Foxy's fur to look at the parking lot.

All he saw was a junk-pile taller than his head, a half-melted, blown-up, ragged mess of scrap metal. Appearing as though a van, a NORMAL one, was hit by a missile salvo.

Smoke trailed lightly from the wreckage, the humanoid visage was utterly eviscerated in the heap.

That was it.

They got him.

"Ugh..." Phil sighed, unclenching his arms and legs in the balled-state he held them in, he draped on the grass tiredly, and when Foxy reared over her own shoulder, she deflated acutely, sat back with a heavy sigh.

The vulpine hung her right arm over her eyes, leaned her backwards, and rolled her shoulders, sitting across the human's lap, too tired to really move much besides that.

Her legs piled at his sides, her tail was still over his left ankle, she breathed slowly, and repeatedly.

Phillip examined the night-sky, still seeable above the entire scene, he didn't know whether to frown, or grin.

In the end he kept an expressionless stare to the few stars that stood brightly in the haze of darkness.

He was alive. And so was Foxy.

"-W-Wow..." He drawled. "...We did it, huh?"

"Mmhmm..." Foxy agreed between hummed breaths, keeping her vision blacked out with her fore.

"-Are you okay?"

"MMMmmm..."

"-T-That's good..."

"..."

"..."

"-Are you... Okay, Phillip?"

"Yep. I'm okay..."

"-That's good."

"Yeah."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"-Phillip...?"

"Hm?"

"-Do that... Puckering-thing, you told me."

"Yep."

He didn't resist when Foxy's arm fell away from her face, and her heaving form draped forwards. She held his shoulder with her paw, kept the hook on the ground above the other, and rammed her chops into his mouth.

She hummed tiredly, undulated her upper and lower mandibles, and spread out the human's lips to shove as much of her own oral cavity into his as physically possible.

Her belly felt hot, she narrowed her brows, and leaned down more, giving a muffled, silky tune, she put more effort into the actions, her eyes tightly remaining shut, she stroked her fingers into the fabric of Phil's hoody.

With a heavenly gasp she disconnected from him, and raised her chin when he pushed underneath and kissed her neck.

Foxy found herself giggling like a swoon child, she ran her waist on him in slow motions, kept as much of her frontal body flattened to him as she could. Eventually, her grin faded when the human dragged back from her neck-crook, and laid on the grass again.

She exhaled, and lowered her head until their mouths were still pressed together, the fatigue stopped any more exertion.

"-You... Threw a bomb at me...?" She chuckled, speech slurred by his lips.

"Did I do good?"

"What other girl... Could say their guy got them- a BOMB to stick in some asshole's skull?"

"Good question..."

"-Best aid EVER..."

Phillip laughed with her, and in doing so, he glanced back to the steaming mess in the lot, and subsequently, the ruined red convertible car that sat silently next to it, now scorched from the prior explosion in addition.

He didn't understand the apparition that had been helping him fight the monster, but he did not question it until this point, because with everything ELSE that had happened on this adventure, nothing was in the possibilities of being IMPOSSIBLE...

So when, from such a distance even, he saw what the real state of the driver was and HAD been, his quiet laughing faltered for a bleak silence.

Whether blessing, or reminded of the stakes, Phillip didn't know. Jensk played his part, so it must have been a really good thing.

Matt didn't need to watch alone.

The red convertible, the car that belonged to the former Police Officer had come and brought the savior.

But the car itself, was and always had been, empty.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	26. Chapter 26

_**...Alright, I'm just putting it out there now-**_

_**If anybody isn't into really sad stuff, you, my good sir/madam, are going too HATE me after reading this chapter.**_

_**I warned you! **_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 26.

Fumble in the Dark.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"Our lenses may be broken, but our electronic systems still function! We are not defeated!"_**

**_-Writ 80 of Surveillance_**

_You cannot win this alone._

**_I CAN!_**

_We cannot work without the aid of allies._

**_But I-CAN!_**

_Do not give power to the other._

**_Give me all the power, and see the evils BLEED, I'll make them! You and me will tear them apart! Make their comrades watch before THEIR doom as well! _**

_Blind rage will accomplish nothing, and undo all._

**_'ALL', is the key word! Transition!_**

_You'll regret it._

She knew she'd regret it.

She knew her buddies would regret it.

But she also knew she was dueling with the second-most hated individual of her life, and that the prime target was nearby.

She knew all of this.

However, Mangle was too angry to care anymore.

Freddy's paw narrowly swept by her face again, barely evaded. She transitioned exactly after ducking from the blow atop the bear's head, the violet tinge of illumination in her eyeless socket was drowned in darkness, her teeth appeared to lengthen.

With a feral growl, Mangle reared back her newer, rending jaws, and dug them into Fredd's cranium, giving off a tearing shriek of bolts being torn from their connections.

The other animatronic howled something, along the lines of a painful demise, the works for the villain.

But it was still on the table that Mangle didn't give a hoot, so the threats held little value in heeding over tearing off as much of Freddy's head as possible. The two options were dramatically differing in her desire to perform either.

Mangle's throat raggedly reverberated in a wild cry, her teeth clenched over her foe's head again, tightened, before she pulled her mouth back in a forced jerk, sending sparks careening through the night air.

**_CRUNCH_**

"-AGGH! YOU-YOU BITCH!"

She deposited the chunk of steel over his shoulder with a spitting motion, sending it clattering to the pavement below.

"Time for the karma to hit home, asshole!"

"-So unlike you, eh, nutcase?!"

"We all change! Better or worse!"

"-I'm not complaining... I LIKE the new you! CRAZIER! HA!"

"I'll KILL you!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Wading with a tired stumble in the shadow, her legs felt wobbly, her waist was like liquid, and her mind spun.

The explosion had thrown her off, the fight exhausted her, she felt utterly drained. Yet she also felt the adrenaline, knowing that if she just sat back and wimped out, they were all dead..

They needed to work together. A machine couldn't function right without ALL its parts.

"-I..." However, even with her renewed confidence of actually beating the odds, Foxy was still slack-jawed at the red convertible before her, ruined and smashed on the pavement.

"...I don't understand... W-Where's Jensk...?"

She blinked away the haze of the crackling embers still dancing around the car and in the melted scrap-heap that used to be the giant mutated van, clenching the frame of the left driver-side door, and peering at the stained, scorched leather of the seats and wheel.

The interior of the vehicle had folded like crumpled tin-foil upon impact, the red body exterior was unrecognizable through all the burn marks, places where metal was ripped away, gaping masses of black where the wheels had blown off into the parking lot.

The windshield was gone entirely, torn away and shredded, leaving a thin line of bumpy gray on the top of the front above the dashboard. Steam rose in a small hiss from the cracked engine-block under the jutting, partially-ajar hood.

Silently, Foxy examined the car with a heavy heart.

"-Y-You said you HEARD him..."

"I did."

"Then where the hell IS he?"

"I... I have no damn idea..."

"-This is perfect, really... Wait until Matt gets a hold of this one."

Phillip, who had stepped over to view the wreckage from her rear, felt his breathing come to a halt, his bodily weight seemed to sink into his stomach and pit there.

The gnawing sensation of loss flooded his bloodstream, he was cold, hot, angry, saddened, and loathing all at once, and suddenly.

"Fox'... Uhm... You didn't see-"

"-What he go off and RUN on us now too, Phil?"

Phillip's speech caught in his throat and his eyes watered. Blinking the moistness away, he never saw Foxy's amused grin drain away from her snout as fast as it had been created.

She clenched her mandible, turned from the car door and held her arms loosely by her hips.

Her speech faltered.

"-P-Phillip...?"

"-H-He... He isn't..."

"He isn't WHAT?"

"-Matthew... Isn't... My God, he isn't-"

"HE ISN'T WHAT?!" Foxy roared, stepping away from Jensk's car, Phillip's shoulder swung back and forth from a grip by her paw. She was expressionless with the tone of horror.

Statue-like, she waited for an answer, kneading her fingers into the fabric of his hoody.

"-Foxy..." He looked away, towards his boss' tattered van. "-I..."

Phil never managed to vocally announce the true extent of WHY Matt wasn't having a breather with them after defeating the monster.

He took out the .357 from his pocket with his right hand, held it by its midsection and toyed with the barrel. Foxy's eyes darted to glare at the gun for no more than a millisecond, before she tore away from him with a held-in whine.

He could tell, that if she hadn't stifled herself, she would have sobbed loudly at that moment, but Foxy strained her jaws, locked them, and shut her eyes tightly when she swung away in a distressed lumber towards the car again.

All that came out was this high-pitched whine that he was never able to describe perfectly.

Choking on her vocals, Foxy hugged herself, her foot lashed out and dented the already ruined door of Jensk's car.

She muttered behind her chops and started to quiver.

"-I'm sorry..." He started with a mutter, but later barked. "I'm sorry!"

"-I-I... F-!" Foxy's arms flung out, the hook arced to her right. "-FUCK!"

With a shriek of steel, the hook imbedded into the structure of the door's top hinge, piercing, and holding fast when Foxy brought her wrist back towards herself.

**_CRK!_**

"-FUCK IT!"

Foxy clenched the door with her paw too, side-wound in the opposite angle where Phil stood, and tossed the car door away from her like a giant parody of a shuriken star.

The hunk of metal, plastics and leather spun into the blackness, skittered onto the pavement with a few clacks and dents, rattled to a stop and grew still.

"-FUCK ALL OF THIS!"

"Foxy, stop! Don't do that too yourself-!"

"-I'LL DO WHAT I WANT TOO MYSELF!"

"-What? And leave me without help so I can be DEAD too?!"

"-THAT'S-!" Foxy's speech cut off, she hunched towards him, took a step forwards and jabbed a finger from her quaking paw, her face wild, eyes like daggers. "-THAT... That isn't going to HAPPEN, PHILLIP."

"-If we don't get our heads on straight, it WILL happen!"

"NO. IT. WON'T."

"-You're letting your anger blot out reason."

"THERE IS NO REASON! There's no logic! No SENSE. No hope..."

The animatronic broke her stare to him, stepped a bit into the surrounding darkness once more, and buried her face into the palm of her paw. She muffled a sob and arched her back.

Phillip watched her shoulder-line for a few moments, breathed heavily to take away the constant heaving he had been experiencing, stowed the gun back in his pocket.

"-Foxy..."

"-NO."

"Foxy... Please,"

"Don't 'Foxy PLEASE' me..."

"How can we know what will happen after I get you a new life... If we die and can't LIVE your new life?"

"-I bring death with me Phillip... DEATH... What kind of life is that? Hm?"

"Once we end this, you won't have to worry about death ever again..."

"I don't believe you."

"Yes you do, I know you do."

"-No... You DON'T..."

"Yeah I DO."

His hands took hold of her balled shoulders, turned her slowly to face him, he smiled as best he could through all the stress of the ambient swirling around them.

Piercing the dark, her face appeared strained, her lip-line quivered, arms curled over herself, the animatronic was finished with the whole thing.

She had dealt with physically fighting three insane members of her 'Race' of sorts, being in solitary confinement in a dusty old alley in some worn-out food establishment, all the while, working with people to STOP the insanity, and seeing many of them die before they could come close to doing exactly their goal.

Phillip knew Matthew had recruited a few other people like himself, and that they either perished, or were put in some medical ward somewhere for a good amount of time, before they too gave up.

How many beings, human or otherwise, were or had been involved in this battle, he did not know.

A part of him was curious to it, and another part wanted nothing more to be added.

Channeling that energy into saying the right thing for the animatronic vulpine was difficult, and near impossible the more he had to strain his mind in weaving the words.

Squeezing his fingers into her fur, he waited for the emotional wreckage flogging around inside her to heave back a bit.

It was amazing the physical shade that left Foxy's face as she settled, keeping her darting eyes locked on him, she felt the anger and remorse cease its screaming, using the focused consideration she had with him, as a curing agent.

Phillip caught up on the change, just like he had the emotional break-down of sorts, he gave her a light push.

"Matt would want us to win. So that's what we'll do."

"...I know that..."

"That's why I know you'll pull through it."

"...I... I don't..."

"We got this. C'mon, I want to find the whackjob before we do anything else-"

"OFF OF ME, YOU WORM!"

**_CLACK_**

Foxy reached up with her paw and dragged to Phillip's left, pulling him eastward, to avoid a sudden flail in the atmosphere around them.

The barked burst came from the angry animatronic that was responsible for all this mess, Freddy reaching upwards, clenching a flinging mess if metal, and throwing it overhand of his head with a snarling grunt.

Leaving his grip was a draping mass of steel limbs capped with a vulpine snout, it screeched angrily, not like it usually did, and ended its travel into the side of Jensk's wrecked automobile.

Mangle ended her sail in an avoidance of serious impact, as she did indeed seem impossible to throw 'Off-Balance' so to speak.

She was like a cat, ALWAYS landing on her feet. Or, hands AND feet... Whichever discombobulated limb was ahead of the other.

In retrospect, Mangle flung herself in a aerial roll, stopping her travel with a collection of aluminum, hollow clunks and thuds, the heels of her feet and palms of hands forming a spider-like bush of supporting limbs that pressed into the red, scorched hide of the car.

Akin to someone stopping their fall with raised wrists and hands, Mangle's hit jolted the vehicle with a spring on the pavement. She snarled, crawling and scurrying back towards the direction of the bear with a set of grinned, sharpened fangs.

"-I'LL RIP OUT YOUR EYES, BASTARD!"

"I'll admit, HUMAN," Freddy dismissed with annoyed sneer, brushing the gaping tear on the top of his head where Mangle had bitten off his right ear, and part of his cranial cap. "-Your own packdog can mount a punch..."

Checking the top of his head with a tapping set of fingers, Freddy frowned when Mangle lunged forwards again, hands and tentacled pipes outstretched to wrap around and harry him as before.

Now prepared, the bear's palm snatched upwards, and caught Mangle mid-leap with a crunch of steel and plastics, her limbs flying ahead of her to bounce uselessly off the other animatronic's body and face, her head snapped forwards, clapping her jaws in a vane attempt to reach him.

Freddy reclined from the snarling other, sighed in disgust.

"You RUINED, my HAT." He snapped.

His leg dexterously reared, and shot forwards with the heel presented, ended its kick into the rib-section of the Mangle's body, and sent her flailing backwards towards Phillip and Foxy, all in a span of a few moments.

"MANGLE!" Foxy cried, running towards the direction her friend clattered onto the pavement.

Phillip stuttered on his own speech, and reached for his pocket to the gun concealed there.

Right when he thought he felt the handle, his fingers clasped absolutely nothing. Nothing but the cotton-material in the space his hoody's pocket made.

Feeling an ice-cold tsunami flow throughout his body, Phil's face paled, he darted upwards to watch Foxy lean down to the Mangle's fall, and the bear dust himself off with an annoyed tone to his mocking words.

"You people always find ways to either ruin my hats, or scuff my fur... I really don't understand the animosity!"

"BURN IN HELL!" Foxy yelled, kneeling down to pick Mangle up off of the pavement.

The violet tinge in her one eye socket was absent, but the fangs that invaded her maw whenever she 'Switched' were also not present. Her good eye was shut, mouth limp, pipe-limbs draped and unmoving.

For a horrible second, Foxy thought she was dead.

But when the little whackjob vulpine twitched on the ground, Foxy flung her arms out, careful of her hook, and scooped up her friend with her paw and opposite forearm. Handling the bundle in her grip, she stared daggers as Freddy stepped closer towards the wreck of the car.

"By Sam-hell! Ole' Jensk DID make it! Figure that, eh, Foxy-girl?" The bear leaned over the side of the car and 'Tsked' at the mauled interior. "-And too think he's STILL trying..."

As this occurred, Phillip Linn was still frantically searching his person for the gun, his only hope of wrecking the bear.

He tried his pants, the rest of his hoody, his hands tapped all over his clothes and legs... And he still came blank.

"-W-WHAT? H-How is this POSSIBLE?!" He hissed. "-I don't understand!"

"Not yet, Mr. Phillip Linn."

"W-Who-?!"

"The door to the pizzeria, get into it."

"B-But I can SHOOT him!"

"He's too fast out in the open. He'll get to you, kill you, then he'll kill the others."

"So running INSIDE his HOUSE is a better freaking option?! Screw off man!"

The ghostly voice did not respond, and instead, all Phillip saw was Freddy narrow his eyes in the darkness, and stare deeper into the interior of the convertible.

The animatronic growled, reached inside with an outstretched paw.

"What are you playing at, old friend?" He muttered.

When Freddy reclined from his grip, he held something, yet another cylindrical object, metal-looking.

The demonic monster might have uttered a comment about pointless trash, but in the split second it took him to blink at the small seeming-piece of garbage, the apparent device split open like a miniature sun.

**_BANG_**

A great splash of light, kicked sparks, Freddy stumbled back in a lumbering stride from the car with his paws waving frantically by his face.

"-GAH!" Sputtering, the bear drew a claw down his face, eyes fluttering, a whine of malfunctioning sensory systems within his head bleeping in his hearing. "JENSK!"

"Mr. Phillip Linn, go! RUN!"

"F-Foxy! Follow me! Hurry up!"

Phil jabbed a finger to the door of the pizzeria.

Foxy was just about to set Mangle down and take an opportunity of jumping Freddy while he was blinded, she gawked at him with a lowered mandible, and pointed at the flailing enemy.

"HE'S BLIND! Let's get him! KILL HIM!"

"No! NO! He'll recover! FOLLOW ME!"

"But Phillip-!"

"TRUST ME!"

"I-I... F-FINE! FINE!"

"Get Mangle, come on!"

Foxy sneered at the disoriented foe of her very life, looked down, and re-took Mangle in her arms again to sprint in Phil's direction, his own legs arcing towards the steps of the pizzeria.

Shoes clacking, vulpine heels slacking on the concrete, the trio reached the steps, where Phillip flung himself up the whole array in two leaping raises of his legs, waving his arm at the glass doors.

"C'mon! Inside! Now!"

"-P-PHILLIP?! Are you insane?!"

"Yes! Now trust me! Please, Fox'!"

Not liking the idea any more than Phil did, since he was following the advice of a freaking specter, Foxy bit her lower chop, jumped up to the top of the steps, and shoved in front of Phillip.

She glanced at him, shut her eyes, and shoulder-checked the door with a loud **_THWACK_**.

The entry flung inwards, a pane of glass on the bottom section cracking like a giant, translucent arachnid had taken residence in its epicenter. Phil ran in at her back, watching out into the parking lot when Freddy spiraled in his stance, faced them directly out there, in the black.

"HUMAN!" He barked.

"Not good!" Phillip uttered, frantically looking over his shoulder for something in the lobby to bar the door with.

"PHILLIP! The door-covers!"

"Huh?"

In two deft movements, Foxy deposited Mangle on one of the dining tables with a clattering of aluminum, sprinted back to the entry, and shoved the startled security guard out of the way with a flung wrist.

Reaching upwards, she pulled down the handle of one of the pizzeria's many anti-trespassing procedures.

The metal shade crackled and unfolded, covering the girth of the twin glass doors with a single pull of Foxy's hook and paw. Yanking until the chin smacked onto the floor, she inched back, sighting the hook-and-chain that locked the panel down to a small bevel in the floor of the lobby.

Reaching down, her trembling paw applied the hook into the bevel, she laid the tiny chain dragging from its end in a pile over its position, and kicked the locking mechanism until it was dented in on itself, broken.

When the final hollow thud of metal rung out, Foxy stepped back, breathing heavily, watching the still, silent, shade of steel that blocked the bear outside from reaching them this moment.

Waiting for something, maybe anything, in the shady interior of the pizzeria's lobby, Foxy and Phil's shoulders sulked, they looked at each other, then at Mangle on the table, and then to the surrounding dining area and foyer, the empty stage.

Where all three of the killers had first stood when Phillip joined the nightguard profession, there now was a unhealthy population of dust clusters atop the dampened wood panels of the stage's top. Darkness was not total, but still blanketed everything in the room and the halls beyond the twin sets of closed doors on either flank.

Phillip observed all this, and swallowed dryly.

"F-Fox'... This is... This is the part where we find THEM, before the other-way around... Right?"

The vulpine didn't respond, contemplating her companion's words in the hollow, eerie silence of the pizzeria's internals.

Her torso beveled repeatedly in slow intakes and outtakes, her half-mechanized system still flushed with adrenaline. Rubbing her digits around the cap-like end of her right wrist, she toyed with her hook's mounting, hitched her breath, and ran over to the table with Mangle on it.

Phillip watched her in confusion for a second, gasped, and remembered that the third member of their party had only been, at least what appeared to be, injured, a mere few minutes ago.

His shoes echoed in the lobby as he jogged to Foxy's side and leaned over the table to stare at Mangle's huddled pile.

Her one good eye had fluttered open, and remained narrowed, she clenched her jaw, her tightened glance flashing between the two of them.

More scary than how she LOOKED, was how she sounded.

"Philly...?"

Her voice was rasped in a ghostly hiss, the noise an air vent made when there was a draft outside.

"-Foxy...? I... Hurt..."

Foxy shoved her hook in her mouth and clamped down, leaning forwards, and observing the area where Freddy had hit Mangle with a well-placed kick.

Dead-center the metal rib-cage that supported her neckline and head, acting as the zenith for her pipes, a gash of ragged steel and plastic flashed a tiny hint of uncoupled wires at its farthest rim, a small clicking, like that of a malfunctioning computer desktop, emitted from the wound.

Mangle made a cough that jerked her whole form, it was laced with static, in relation to a bad reception from a T.V. antenna.

Phillip's mouth was ajar, his hands hovered over her, and at that point, he had no idea what to do.

"Son of a bitch..." He muttered, lowly, so as Mangle couldn't hear him. "-W-What hurts, Mangle?"

Foxy almost belted 'WHAT DO YOU THINK?!' but chomped on her hook, moaned, and stepped away to reluctantly watch the doors of the lobby.

"T-Tell me... I... I want... I think-...I CAN help."

"Everything..."

"Not you too..."

"Philly... If... If me don't..."

"-H-Hey, HEY, no no! We'll fix you! I-I'll fix you! Don't worry, Mangle, I'll think of something!"

"-Me... Hurt bad... Might not... Might not stay awake."

"You WILL be fine, Mangle! W-Where's that weirdy I've had a love/hate gist with for the last week? H-Huh? You'll be okay!"

"PHILLY."

He stopped dead mid-speech, shocked at how... FORMAL, Mangle sounded with her childish voice as she addressed him again.

"F-Facts, is... FACTS. Me hurt bad... Me want to tell you,"

"W-What do you want to tell me...?"

Mangle made another static-laced wheeze, her pipes curled around her smashed ribcage, she huddled in on herself, and made a faint whine when the wound in her chest flickered brightly.

Phillip had realized, at this single moment in his life, of this week, that he had never taken this entire thing seriously. It was like some child-dreamt adventure. Fight alongside mechanical beasts to destroy MORE mechanical beasts... The stuff of theme-park rides.

It excited him, it scared him, but he had believed he would win against the dark, and help all of these people, and these other beings, that had been tied up in the mess.

And now, because he had been so foolhardy, a creature that was more innocent than any other body of this entire situation, the actual, the only, victim out of the animatronics, and among the few other humans who have suffered similarly...

-His buddy, someone who relied on him, and found hope in him...

Was most likely fatally injured by the same demon he thought would just die because he had a team.

He had no tools, no 'Medical' supplies, whatever in that category applied to a animatronic organism...

And Mangle was in the soup, he had nothing to get her out.

He felt terrible, helpless.

"-F-Fox'..." Turning around in the dark of the lobby, Phillip watched the vulpine's back, and shakily sighed when she didn't respond.

"...Philly...?"

Back at the table, Phillip was reminded Mangle had something to say to him.

"-Y-Yes?"

"-E-Even though... I... Annoy you... And act, stupid... Me want you to know, that I never had friend to make me feel that happy... Okay?"

Phillip trembled there for a second, knelt on the flank of the table, and raised his hand to rub between the Mangle's ears, receiving a small exhale from the other as reaction.

Curled on the wooden tabletop, appearing so defeated and weak, Mangle smiled at him through the obvious pain that wracked her mechanical form, the violet hue in her eye glowed back for a few seconds, and popped out again.

Phil's eyes were draining all down his face, he caught on his own repeated hiccups from the emotion.

"-Y-You were never STUPID, Mangle... A-And you know what, you make me, and Foxy, really happy too."

"M-Me glad to hear... That..."

Phillip felt a presence over his shoulder, and glancing, he saw Foxy's shadow overtaking the space directly behind him.

A part of him did not want to sulk here anymore, a part of him that, he knew, was the cowardly other that RAN from the emotions no person wanted to deal with, instead of sticking through it for the sake of another.

Phil hurried past the two animatronics to watch the doorframes of the lobby, dragging his hoody's sleeve across his eyes.

Behind him, Foxy, nor Mangle, said anything.

Foxy just reached up and held the space between Mangle's ears with her paw.

-0-0-0-0-0-

There was this story.

It wasn't a wonderful story, and, some people in the world, might not even call it a STORY of sorts, more than just a giant tragedy.

However, aside from what the 'Commonality' would determine who-and-what...

Here is the point.

There was this story.

It was a story that she, not anyone else, not her allies, not her enemies, not her victims, just solely HER, found absolutely, positively, one emotive description, that could be summed in a single statement.

Too her, all the tragedy, the death, murder, conflict, insanity, debauchery, was unmistakably...

FUNNY.

It was hysterical!

She had lived longer than her victims had ever been alive before their lights were put out, and it didn't matter which age, or era, those victims came from, or how they aged once the material world was behind them.

All that mattered, was that she found it funny, and that no one else DID.

That was the sense of morality talking to them, so, she held no grudge.

After all, did a lion or other predatory cat, hold a grudge against the prey animal that escaped? They were both doing what came naturally to their survival instincts.

One was a hunter.

The other was hunted.

It was an exact duplicate of the situation here and now, with her.

She hunted.

They died.

How could it get any simpler, black and white, than that? You could literally sum it up in a single sentence, and the imaginative of the world would piece it together in seconds.

Chica had been 'Alive' whatever that meant, far longer than her opponents in Foxy, the broken freak named Mangle, or even her ally in Bonnie. Humans had found sharpened steel more effective for dealing death when she had first been incarnated in the material world by the overseer.

The name 'Baphomet' had been ringing in her mind for generations, and whatever form of intellectual calculation she had used, similar to Bonnie, to apprehend her prey, had been drowned out in a torrential overflow of madness.

Of course, as this is all described, it would be best to understand that while her devotion to her creator not only had given her power, AND made her crazy- It had made her crazy to the point her own memory did not recall the greater events of the prior few minutes.

Chica's mind was repeatedly flushed with new bouts of insanity and endless chants for differing goals of death and slaughter. Since victims, since PREY, had been kept from her for so long, the voices in her blackened spirit had gone into overdrive.

Inbetween the engagements with the newest prey that had been allied with Foxy, Chica had foamed at the mouth, clawed inanimate objects until they were shredded husks, implanted her cranium into walls, spoke with the varying personalities sharing her mind.

The babbling mess was uncontrollable by the time Phillip and Foxy had been forced inside the pizzeria.

Baphomet's teachings, commands and verses echoed in her mind.

_FIND._

_FIND._

_FIND._

"I-I will FIND... T-Them..."

_FIND!_

"I-I said I... W-WOULD..."

_FIND NOW._

"I will... I must..."

_KILL. BURN. BLOOD._

"Yeaahhhh... YES..."

_KILL. BURN. FIND._

"F-Find...? FIND?"

_FIND._

"I... I will..."

_FIND NOW!_

"COME OUT, MEAT!"

**_CRASH_**

-0-0-0-0-0-

In the split second it took the doors on the left side of the lobby to implode in a burst of dust and fractured wood, Foxy had reared away from the table with Mangle still draped over it, brought her hook to bare.

Phillip stumbled back, reached for the sidearm in his pocket, and remembered the facts the same time he came back with an empty palm.

Standing in the doorframe of the smashed arch, the yellow-matted furred hide of the bulbous, fat, multi-jawed avian stepped forth on quaking legs, claws unsheathed from hands still flaking from years of dried blood.

What looked like steaming engine-coolant seeped from the bird's beak, flowing past the rows of fangs ringing down her ajar maw. Chica's eyes had been facing opposite directions, and they re-centered when she forced a way into the lobby.

Drawing red-hued lines across Phillip, the animatronic howled, raggedly, and abruptly.

"HA-HA! PREEYY!"

Chica's arms flailed in a crazed sprint towards the human, she flipped an entire dining table out of her path with a series of wooden crashes, the furniture flipping, splintering, and piling at the foot of the band-stage with an upkick of dust.

The bird kept a beeline towards the frozen guard, who, at this second, fumbled about himself for ANYTHING to defend his person with.

Phillip patted around his belt, panicking, his eyes wild.

He felt a solid resistance, a handle, somewhere near his belt on his jeans.

Marveling, Phil flicked his hoody and shirt out of the way, grabbed the object, and yanked it out with seam of metal.

Holding the thinned, shiny metal before him, Phillip gawked at one of the kitchen knives he had been arming himself with over the last few days, and saw his own reflection in the blade.

He appeared so afraid, pale.

With all that had now happened, he was as at least going down fighting. If the chicken was to get him, he was taking her down WITH him.

Kitchen knife or not.

Glancing back up, he saw Foxy leap in front of Chica, clear over another table in a skilled jump that carried her higher than any of her fellow animatronics, or another human, could accomplish.

Landing before her, Chica made to back-hand the vulpine from her path with a swept forearm.

The yellow-furred bulge swung into air when Foxy performed a trade-mark duck beneath the swing, and tackled the bird with a spring forwards into her gut.

Seeing the crashing metal limbs flailing, Phillip cried out.

"I'M IN IT THIS TIME, TOO!"

Without real rational thought, the guard threw himself into the tussle between Foxy and Chica, and immediately regretted it.

He was elbowed by the vulpine by accident, one of Chica's swings glanced his left breast, the bird's shoulder jerked forwards, and numbed his belly. Feeling dizzy from his sprawl in the flailing, half-mechanical bodies, Phil mustered his last breath, and swung the blade he was holding downwards before being catapulted away.

Whether it was Foxy OR Chica that kicked him off the fight, was never known to him. However, Phillip ended his sail on top of one of the dining tables with a wooden thud.

His lungs emptied, world flashed, his head ached, and he lay there for a moment to consider the ceiling he stared at directly above him.

"G-GET OFF, PREEY!" Chica shrugged off the slices of Foxy's hook, the punches from her paw, kicks and shoves, she rolled on the floor too the left, tumbling the fist-fight until Foxy was sprawled out underneath her.

Chica took the weight advantage, pressed harder until Foxy was forced to extend her arms and legs to keep the bird from damaging her with her sheer bulk. Grinning evilly, the avian kicked off the fox with a single leap, lost her footing on the floor.

She regained her posture as quick as the jumping stumble earned her distance from her long-time foe.

Foxy had just thrown herself to her feet when Chica cleared the distance to the human still laid out on the table's top, and hung over him, her matted, yellow-fur bristling in excitement.

"I HAVE YOU! HAHA!"

Chica grabbed Phillip by the waist and ducked her multi-rowed teeth towards his belly.

"-MMINE!"

For what she had intended, it would have been a MILLION times worse than her clawing of his leg...

Yet, jutting out of the space by her neck, impaled in the matted fur of her collar, Phillip's knife still shown with half of its blade lodged in her hide.

From the groove on the bird's neck it had been stabbed into, it provided an opening that Chica's blood-rage, prevented her from noticing.

So when the only other creature besides Foxy, that held an even higher grudge with her over the years, came flailing out of the backdrop, the avian had no opportuinity to save herself from the unavoidable.

"I'LL SAVE YOU, PHILLY!"

"NOT YOU AGAIN-!" Chica's scream was close enough to rattle the flesh of Phil's body, just to symbolize for him how close she had come to digging into him.

The animatronic dropped him back onto the table, screaming wildly when Mangle spontaneously worked the last-ditch effort to save her friend, brought all of her fists and feet down to pummel the chicken from all angles.

Chica's head dented, one of her eyes flew out of its socket, she spat out dislodged fangs, and her beak was nearly knocked off the hinges keeping it attached.

One of Mangle's hands clasped the knife imbedded in her foe's throat, and, instead of wrenching it out, the discombobulated little hero did what no combatant would expect.

Mangle weighed in on the blade with three of her hands, pushing the blade to the left, and curling the knife's business end to carve through Chica's side-throat, all the way to the point, where the steel began to puncture in exit, out of the fur by the base of her neck.

The avian screamed and howled, more loudly and horridly than any of them had ever heard from her.

Mangle kept pulling and working the knife, ignoring the punches and swings Chica batted across her pipes and head.

**_CLINK!_**

All of the racket the chicken had made dimmed significantly, the knife slacked out of the newly-torn wound it had rendered through the animatronic's spinal-top, and flittered onto the floor. Mangle reared back, her mouth, filled with the same fangs her changed-self utilized.

"-Y-YOU CAN'T KILL ME!"

Mangle faltered when Chica reached behind herself, and grabbed the hole in her ribs.

**_CLAK_**

"I'LL LIVE ON!"

Mangle understood her injury was not allowing a possibility other than her end, and that was reaffirmed when Chica clenched her fist, and crushed something into the hole on her body.

Feeling her systems wearing, Mangle knew she needed to do what was intended, what NEEDED to be done, before she no longer had the ability to do so.

"You will NEVER live on!" Her personality switched upon finality. "-Because me save my FRIENDS!"

Mangle bit down on the wound on Chica's back, wracked her fangs into the metal, wire-wrapped, ancient structure that was the avian's entire rear-torso support, and tugged with her jaws, with all her remaining strength.

Chica howled, yelled, screeched, gurgled and choked.

The sound of tearing fabric, cracking plastic, creaking, rusted metal echoed in the lobby.

Mangle's head jerked back when the structure she was gripping gave way.

Chica stopped flailing, her legs, arms, and head, all fluttered to weakly drape over herself, like a robot would be locked down upon being powered off.

Mangle's mouth was pulling a tower-like, mechanical spire from within the bird's body, and to make the scene even more gut-wrenching, Chica was STILL hollering.

That all came to a close as Mangle kept her pipes wrapped and held over her foe's back and shoulders, gave a final tug with her head, and fell off the chicken animatronic with a hideous wretch of dislocated bolts and screws.

Tiny washers and boltheads skittered in all directions, Chica grew silent, still in a half-knelt stand. Mangle tumbled onto the floor, similarly motionless, her mouth opened, and discarded a multi-disked, mechanical structure onto the floor.

The piece of equipment was ringed with hugging wires, layered and built so that Chica could turn and use her body like any organic vertebret creature.

The only problem was, you couldn't function without the bone-structure, or in this case, metal-structure, needed to be a vertebret.

And that, was the VERTEBRAE.

Finally, after so long, the great feared packdog of the bear, of this mysterious demonic holder, the avian monstrosity termed 'Chica' by whatever modern parody had coined it, was dead.

The yellow-furred body slumped forwards with a rusty lurch, clattered to stillness on the floor of the lobby, Chica's head, or, whatever was LEFT of it, barely attached to the torso after being nearly completely torn off.

Yet behind the corpse, was the price paid for such a victory.

Foxy fell on her backside, and stared silently at the dead body, and the huddle behind it.

The human Mangle had saved, now managed to scurry off the table he had been watching the ending from, and crawl over to her motionless form on the floor.

Without anything to say, because at the moment, he had no words to appropriately sum his sadness, Phillip Linn reached down and curled his dirtied hands underneath Mangle's cream-colored head, to lift it lightly off the floor.

There was no violet light, the one eye was closed, and she wasn't breathing or moving.

He understood the message.

And sullenly, he also understood that now one of his best friends in this mess, was gone too.

Leaning back, Phillip still held Mangle, silently feeling the moisture cascade down his features. He didn't look at Foxy who sat in front of him, but he knew she was in a similar silent state.

As if to mock them, a smell of rot and decay filled the room in a pungent waft.

Casting their glances back to Chica's body, they saw the metals and fibers grow browned before their eyes. The materials warped, like plastic put in a microwave, the solid structures of the avian's body melted and aged, the fur hissed away to nothing.

The ages of time that Chica had unlawfully survived through caught up with her remains, in a sped up process of wear, the animatronic's remains devolved to nothing more than a pile of unidentifiable stains and piles of rotted fabric.

It looked like someone let a rolled up carpet burn in an oil-slick for a week, put it out, and left whatever wasn't incinerated.

Foxy nor Phillip could take pride in the victory.

Much less could their late friend.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27.

Encroaching Towards the Unknown.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"A wise man once told me... Watch out for flying boxes."_**

**_-Writ 82 of Surveillance_**

He was crushed, really.

How could someone who had just lost another, who was important to them, NOT feel crushed once the hammer hit the mark and realizing the full depth played?

Imagine it from the victim's perspective, in a week, you make a friend who you would trust your back too against things literally trying to end your life, trying to kill you, and in a single moment they are taken from you.

Some people would call out the amount of time that had passed.

'It's only been a week! How do you feel that strongly after a WEEK?'

Others would believe.

'I wouldn't let someone's death stop me from saving the day if I didn't KNOW them before the fight...'

But Phillip Linn did not heed either two of those opinions.

It became easier to understand why members of say the military, were able to become life-long friends after only a few days against the impossible side by side.

When you put two people who, in a normal setting, might not be compatible because of first-impression attitudes and locked away inner emotions, into a situation where either could be dead the next moment, they let the ones around them in on things.

Things that were highly personal and provocative to them, in the face of overwhelming danger, people saw the REAL ones beneath the shell much faster than having to break the ice and open up over time.

Being in a different setting of life changed your perspective immensely, whether initially, or over a prolonged exposure.

Kind of like breaking an egg, it took longer to reach the center by tapping it against the rim of a pan, and was instantaneous if you just chucked it at the wall and let it go everywhere. Whether what he had developed with the other party in question was SERIOUS, he would admit, was questionable.

Despite their connection, time was still time, and there was such a thing as being shallow.

Phillip had no intention of taking this 'Permission' he and Foxy had of physical contact, any deeper just because they survived the situation.

Phil intended, with all confidence in their determination, that once the bear was dead, and, he WAS going to be dead for what he had done to the guard on a now personal level- He intended to spend many hours talking to that vulpine animatronic.

There was so much more he did not understand about her... That he wanted to understand.

And he wanted her to open up to him on her own evolutions OUTSIDE of a warzone...

So, if Phillip wanted to see her for HER, first thing was first.

They needed to destroy the other two monsters.

"I... I just... I can't believe she's... GONE, like this."

But his emotions were making it hard to stand up off the floor where he still clenched the motionless, shadowy bundle of non-functioning limbs.

Mangle looked... Like a shell. A skin a caterpillar shed, or a hide a spider molted, or a mold a cicada insect dumped after maturing...

Both eyes were dark, mouth tightly shut, pipes draped here and there, and most painfully, her whole self omitting nothing but a cold silence, the complete opposite of her outgoing, annoying, self. Phillip lightly ran his thumb in circles by her metal-feeling right jaw hinge.

Still breathing in ragged heaves from the emotion he suffered before, Phil unlocked his eyes from viewing the emptied remnant of his friend, to staring across the aisle between the tables he sat in.

Opposite him, sprawled on her backside to the floor too, Foxy kept her vision straight ahead, over him, not THROUGH him.

She was silent, unreadable, no emotion was written on her face.

Her elongated, vulpine head jerked downwards a million times faster than it had locked in that blatant shutdown state she had maintained, her breath blasted out in a shaky moan to her lap, her tail flipped to drape over her left thigh from behind.

Toying with her hook, she weakly brought it to her jaws and chewed the center curve.

In the echoing darkness of the pizzeria's interior, Phillip said and did nothing, he held Mangle tighter, and flexed his fingers nervously.

"F-Fox'?"

"What?"

He was surprised by the muttered response that came too him.

"I... We should... I-I think we should take the rabbit down next."

"..."

Foxy's eyes darted to scrutinize him from an angle, she squinted, yellowed highlights of her seeing apparatus thinning in the dark.

Her front golden teeth curled from her upper chops and dug into the synthetic mesh of her mouth-line, and she shuffled on the floor to a full stand.

The joints in her legs and arms creaked lightly, she flexed her legs backwards and arched her back, like a cat, shifted to a light relaxation, and gestured for him to get up.

"Leave her."

Phillip held in his temper at the emotionless command she made to Mangle's fallen form, felt his face twitch, and shuffled away from the deceased animatronic with a quick movement.

Scrabbling on the floor, he tested his hand with a hold before his eyes, and saw it shaking profusely, sneered, stood up and drew his palms down the front of his hoody to kick off a thin sheet of dust and floor debris.

Looking back at where the chicken had basically melted on the floor, he bent down, and retrieved a thin blade of steel, unharmed by the unholy retribution that had liquidated its victim around it. Whilst the avian wore away, his kitchen knife sat in the small mess, completely untouched, minus a small bend in its length.

He stowed it back into his belt where he had originally forgotten about it, turned to Foxy and shrugged.

"Well... Where do we start?"

"He's in the back."

"W-Wait... How do you know that?"

"If I were him, that's where I'd be. Let's go."

She became impatient, still expressionless, her foot tapped on the floor when Phil just looked at her dumbly.

"NOW." She snapped, spinning on her heels, and stalking towards the door on the side of the lobby's rear.

The guard jumped at her raised voice, eyed the stage as they passed, and followed closely when Foxy practically planted her heel into the door to open it.

**_THWACK_**

-And the scary part was, the entry didn't swing back on its hinges after being batted aside.

She stalked through the archway like nothing even remotely loud had occurred, swinging her head to view the sides of the entrance and all angles of hall adjacent. A great blackened expanse loomed on the other side.

Extending several feet into the depths of the once proud establishment, it was becoming harder to tell which parts of the building had BEEN open to the public, and which were the unseen 'Back Alleys' of the business as years passed.

By this point the whole inside was a blackened mess, broken light fixtures ensured a healthy blanket of onyx wherever you went whenever it wasn't daytime. This particular passage was illuminated by only a flickering cone of white from one of the lights above.

The tiny amount of illumination droned ozone with each miniscule zap that briefly lit the tiled floor up.

Phillip looked around at all the vacant doors, shut, leading to closets and some to the backstage area.

He angled back to the still open door where the lobby was, doting on leaving Mangle.

"So what now?"

"You'll follow me."

"What if you're wrong-?"

"-I'M NOT."

Her jab was issued right as she started walking again, towards the lightshow that would make ANY victim in a horror movie think twice before just waltzing in.

Examining by his feet, at his sides and above him, Phillip watched for something blunt or sharp, besides his mace can and the kitchen knife, he checked his pocket and cursed when he still came empty of Matt's firearm.

"I can't believe Jensk... Or whatever the hell IT, he-Is, took the gun..."

Foxy didn't hear his muttering, she stepped into the light of the flickering fixture, craned her neck back to blink in annoyance, and shoved her hook upwards.

There was a crack of glass, spitting of cut wire, the flickering vanished and Phillip yipped like a girl when his vision was taken from him with a view of darkness.

"OH SHIT-!"

"Shoosh"

"B-BUT WHY'D YOU-?!"

"Shut UP."

Phillip stumbled back when Foxy's forearm crashed into his chest and forced him to the side of the passageway.

He grunted when his back clunked against the tiled wall, his hands jerked up to cup Foxy's paw when she slapped it over his mouth, and he watched over her side to the space she had taken him from for whatever had her so edgy.

When he lost the stiffness, she released him and narrowed her eyes.

"Just listen," She whispered, leaning against the wall next to him.

"For what?"

"LISTEN."

**_TAP_**

**_TAP_**

**_TAP_**

Those were footsteps.

It sounded like multiple pairs of feet, plastic-padded heels of metal.

Foxy bore her teeth, the golden ones giving off a tiny sheen in the dark, and Phillip reached for the knife on his belt.

"There's two of them,"

"Not the rabbit?"

"No."

"Alright. How do we do this?"

"Stay here-"

"NO. You said two?"

"I did, and I also said STAY HERE."

"We'll take them together."

"-I'm NOT having them do to you what that bitch did to MANGLE-"

As their hushed argument ensued, they never saw the two lumbering, thin shadows of humanoid figure until they were practically on top of them.

Two endoskeletons strolled into the hall, right past them in the dark, not being able to pierce the blackness like Foxy or her fellow breed naturally had the sight for. The machines marched with in-tune clacks of their heels, towards the lobby they had just left.

Foxy was about to shove Phil away and tackle the monsters, but her arm swept nothing.

Her head darted to look where the guard had vacated from next to her, back to the endoskeletons, and what she saw made her innards do a backflip.

Phillip hunched himself in a quiet, organized concentration of the force he let his shoes hit the floor with, the knife he had brought was held in his one hand, the other was open, both aimed for the endo on the left of the two-body patrol.

Foxy hissed and hurried to stand next to him right as the human pounced.

Grabbing the first mechanical skeleton's jaw with his palm, Phillip rent the creature's head back and drove the blade into the center-point of its wired, plastic-covered throat, wincing from the effort, and the static screech the thing made from the surprise.

His blade slid through the material of its throat, two bulky hands swung over the skeleton's shoulders to capture and tear him away, but Phillip hunched until he was almost face-first with the beast's hips.

Feeling his muscles strain to hold the thing down, he twisted the blade, felt the body convulse mechanically, and bent the steel back like one would pry a nail with the rear-head of a hammer.

He met resistance, grunted, and pulled with all his might until something snapped, clattered, and the knife wrenched free from the endoskeleton's neck with a spray of sparks.

The thing wheezed, a scream from its vocals was cut when Phillip dragged himself back, and threw the monster onto its back to the tiled floor.

Amazed the other skeleton hadn't tried to stop him from this attack, Phil glanced right as he raised his foot, to see Foxy tearing the curve of her hook from the second skeleton's remains. Where he had just wounded and incapacitated his target, Foxy appeared to rip her victim clean in two.

However, the guard didn't have much time to examine, so, he reoriented his focus to the endoskeleton at his feet, raised his shoe, and slammed his heel down on the monster's head.

There was a crunch of plastics and metals, its face almost looked like it had indented from the hit, the jaw flew off onto the floor, and one of the eyes fractured inside its temple.

Phillip raised and brought his foot down, just like he'd done with the endo that he had run-over back on the rainy street of his neighborhood.

With a final few clacks and crunches, he stepped back to see the soot-trailing, sparking endoskeleton twitch to stillness, hands frozen in mid-air where it clasped in finality for his foot. The thing's head was in a broken splay about the floor, and, checking his shoe, he saw the sole of it was black with oil.

Checking his knife, he grumbled when the blade was not present on the handle.

"Damn it..."

The thing had finally snapped off.

He tossed away the handle, and heard a wheezing snarl from ahead of him.

Looking up, Foxy glared over her shoulder with an expression that seemed more lethal than her hook, her teeth flared, and she WENT to bark at him, when another endoskeleton ran through the door to the lobby they'd come from.

The freak stepped through the broken door Foxy had kicked in prior, blinked a set of wild eyes at them, and sprinted down the hall with lumbering, mechanical legs. A static drone blared down the passage.

"-This time, STAY BACK-!"

Again, Foxy felt completely stunned, when Phillip ignored her raised voice, and threw himself past the animatronic in a run TOWARDS the endoskeleton coming at them.

A few days ago, Phillip would've called himself insane if he had watched this action of his from another perspective. But the recent events had made him... Angry. Very, very, VERY angry.

He understood why Foxy had such a temper.

And he also now did NOT understand, how she kept that temper in check for as much as she did.

Because he had only been exposed to such rage for a short period of time, and he couldn't control himself upon seeing ONE foe, before lunging at them with the intent to rend and destroy.

He was not himself.

Either way-

"-BASTARD!"

-At least when he was an old man, he could proudly proclaim his likeness to William Wallace this night, on his deathbed to a row of shocked onlookers with a big, stupid-ass grin on his face.

Phillip ducked so fast and low when the endoskeleton took a swing at him, he actually hit himself in the chest and gut with his pumping knees. Grunting, he stumbled to a full stand, right as the monster was turning to face him from its missed punch.

Having shifted under its arm, he reached out and slapped his hands over the endoskeleton's thin, metal and plastic shoulders, and threw the creature forwards with a yell of effort.

The beast lost its footing from the sudden shove, flung its bulky, metal palm up, and made a crack in the tiled wall to steady itself from the stumble. Phillip took a step closer to reaffirm his proximity, wrapped his fingers on the back of the skeleton's head.

The guard's foot lashed out, planting into the rear of the endoskeleton's calf and ankle joint, forcing the monster down to a single knee.

The human shoved his hands towards the wall, and the endoskeleton's screech was muffled when it ate the tile of the hall's side, Phillip effectively shoving its face into the marble with enraged glee.

Foxy made a noise of effort near the engagement, and Phil distracted himself glancing over to her, seeing her locked in a clasping of arms with ANOTHER endoskeleton offender.

How many of these freaks were hitting them right now?

Whatever his concern with the number, it didn't matter when the endo he was locked up with elbowed him in the chest and sent a bloom of pain through his collar. He doubled back, hands leaving the creature's head.

Scrabbling on his belt, he retrieved the mace can, and flicked off the cap.

The skeleton stood to its full height, spun around and reared its foot back to kick the human in his recline. Phillip, though, again, was more prepared than his larger foe anticipated.

The trademark hiss of discharging spray kissed the air in the endo's eyes, the thing, strangely, since NONE of the mace's victims so far had been organic, screamed in its static voice, and stumbled past him into the wall on the other side of the hall.

Phillip held the can rigidly, like a club, stood himself up and clambered to the endoskeleton's flank, bringing the ridged butt of the can down repeatedly too the monster's cranium. Plastics snapped and cricked, its noggin jerked with each smack, Phillip wasn't satisfied, wrapped an arm over its chest, and heaved.

The endoskeleton screeched, clattering onto the floor like its fellow Phil had prior ended.

Aiming the can down, he drained the mace further into its thrashing huddle, all over the circuits on its head, and finished the enemy in a duplicate to his last kill, albeit with the OTHER shoe.

**_CLAK_**

**_CLAK_**

**_CLAK_**

**_CLAK_**

The beast's head opened like a black, oily flower, the eyes flung on either side of its lay, oil pooled in the collapsed miniature avalanche of debris that was its temples and fore.

The body whined and convulsed a last, sparks licked by its neck.

Phillip had won that fight too.

He was on a roll.

"Ha-HA! Aha! YEAH! Eat it, SUCKA!"

Whooping at his victory, Phillip looked up just in time to see Foxy throw the ragged body of her foe to the side, tearing her hook from the thing's gut.

The corpse clattered away into the dark, still sparking, and Foxy turned to him, quite angrily.

"PHILLIP! YOU FRIGGING IDIOT!"

"I got 'em didn't I?!"

"Ooh, yes indeed, fleshling, you GOT 'em..."

Foxy had appeared quite animated in the darkness of the hallway, but when the third, uninvited voice, entered the fray, she stiffened, and her eyes darted around Phillip, towards his back.

Whether the enemies were reacting too fast, or Foxy was just too slow after seeing Mangle, Phil did not know, nor care, but at the end of day, it seemed HE was the one who needed to do the quick thinking this time around.

In the prior fights he'd been up front too, but in his own way, he'd never tried to take on these animals in a head-on collision... He had gotten lucky with the endoskeletons. The likelihood of him overpowering Bonnie though, was no exactly up for debate.

The killer Trix-rabbit wannabe was stronger than him.

By A LOT.

Phillip was plucked from the ground like a turnip got torn away by a rushing farmer, two paws grazed wicked sharp nails into his flanks, and before he knew it, he was being raised right up into Bonnie's ugly face.

"How-ya doing, meatsack?" The rabbit grinned with his bulky, molar-laden jaws. "I missed you! We haven't had the chance for our- 'Rip-open the monkey'-game yet!"

"-GOD-Damn it! Put me down, you cereal-box reject!"

"Ooo, I'm hurt, ape."

"YOU'RE GONNE BE HURT, WASTE OF SCRAP!"

Phil just had the second to see Bonnie roll his eyes, when a great gravitational pull threw him away as the hare was grabbed and yanked southwards.

The security worker tumbled onto the tiled floor with a few hisses of discomfort, spinning and scurrying with his legs to stand back up, there was a blur of russet overhead, and Bonnie fell onto his back with an angry, snarling other atop him.

"BACK OFF! YOU'RE DEAD!" Foxy screamed, bringing her hook downwards into an arc, the point at the end of its curve directed for his forehead.

Bonnie's paws snapped upwards, clapping over her wrists, he used his greater strength to evenly distribute resistance to her advantage of height above him.

Even her weight AND musculature couldn't overpower him fast enough.

"-About time-We decided-WHO was-SCRAP-By now, huh?" He cackled.

The rabbit's feet rose, using his backside for leverage on the floor, and peddled in a roll of kicks into her gut, causing the vulpine to reel away with a quick leap backwards.

Foxy landed on both heels, using her palm to steady in the sudden transition, she sneered as her long-time foe stood up, wiped his fingers down his jawline, and hunched over, raising two bulky fists up at her with a grin.

"Let's see how you fare in the OPEN, eh?"

"You've never been able to pin ANYTHING, a fucking bulldozer could outsmart you, Bon'!"

"I've killed my share of the victims here, you KNOW IT!"

"Even two decades later, you rely on KILL-COUNT for your self-righteousness... You stupid boot-licker."

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

Metallic clangs and rumbled echoed down the hall as the two bodies who had never been able to surpass the other, engaged in combat for yet another instance.

Phillip heard the brawl, scrambled to stand up off the tiled floor, and leant against the wall behind him to steady himself.

Shaking from the adrenaline, he jumped when the wall he leant too made a creaking noise, and almost... SHIFTED, beneath his weight. Zipping to full height, the human examined the oddity as best he could in the dark, reached out, and drew his fingers across a doorknob.

He never had noticed this entry before in the hall.

His brow raised, he went to reach for his mace.

"-SUCK ON THIS!"

**_CLACK_**

"GAH! DAMN IT!"

Foxy hit Bonnie with something, but whatever it was, this reverberating clunk of metal rung down the hall, Phillip felt a spinning presence behind him, spun around, and was run over by Bonnie as he tumbled back from the blow.

Compressed against the animatronic's back, Phil got a brief sniff of the decaying wreak that emanated from the monster's very fur, gagged while gravity hurled him, and slammed right through the door he had been examining.

Wood splintered, something aluminum skittered away, Phil's arms hurt when he was shoved into a small crevice, realizing the impact had not opened the door entirely.

The brawl though, the rabbit specifically pushing him back with his weight, squeezed the young man through the ajar crack made by the entry's forced opening, Phillip reached into the shadow, rolled inside whatever the door had blocked from sight in the hall.

If he thought the space before the door was dark, the room it lead too was PITCH black.

The two animatronics still punched, kicked and spit on the other end, there was another tumbling sound, Foxy huffed from effort, the door made a crashing jerk and shut again, leaving the fight on its other face to become echoed and distant.

Phillip gave off squeaks from slipping on the tiled floor in this new room, the fistfight growing more and more distant, he grunted in frustration, swinging his arms around himself to find a switch, or a piece of furniture, anything.

"God damn it, DAMN IT! DAMN. IT! I need to get out there..." He ranted to himself. "-Gotta help her!"

"Mr. Phillip Linn, there is a lightswitch two steps to the left."

"-HUH?! J-Jensk... Jensk. Jensk! JENSK, YOU PIG!"

Phillip followed the voice's instructions without question, flattening his flailing, reaching over, and punching the lightswitch that, normally, he'd never have picked up, with a jabbed knuckle.

There was a dabbing of ozone, the room illuminated brightly for a second, showing off the gleaming surfaces of two metal storage units, a desk, and series of portable refrigerator units that were unplugged and left to rot.

The walls were covered in dull, worn plaster, Phillip squinted to cope with the beam of light screaming from a fixture in the center ceiling, whipped his head about to view the metal furniture nearest to the right of the door.

Said entry, he now saw, had been locked with a bolt and chain, the fight had smashed it, forced him inside, and RE-smashed the door, if thinkable, to close him again.

Raising his arms in anger, he flopped them by his hips again, stalked to turn to the rear of the room, and narrowed his eyes at the portable refrigerators, green paint chipped and worn, some of the cables leeching from their undersides had been cut with scissors or a razor.

Strangely, despite the apparent storage here, the room smelled acute of moth balls.

"Come out, Jensk. I know it's you... I want to see you. Show yourself."

"Mr. Phillip Linn... I'm... Not exactly in a position to do that."

"-Fuck it, man! I want answers! NOW!"

"Please, Phillip... I need you to calm down."

"CALM DOWN?!"

"-Phillip I WANT to explain myself! I can't if you keep screaming!"

"-B-BUT-!"

What else could he say?

There was some disembodied voice of the man he was SUPPOSED to see running around helping him, his best friend was fighting the freaks, and his OTHER friend had been killed.

Phil drained the steam, raggedly groaned and stared at the door.

"I... F-Fine... So then, where-?"

"I can't exactly reveal myself, Mr. Phillip Linn, but I can explain."

"So... You ARE Jensk? The mechanic? The ex-cop?"

"Yours truly. I wish we could've... 'Met' under better circumstances."

"Yeah... Yeah that would've been swell. Just REAL swell..."

"Phillip, before you take the bear, you need to get rid of the rabbit."

"I can't do that in this storage-closet, you shithead."

"Just... Phillip, here is what I need you too do, are you listening?"

"Uh-huh... Another chore, eh? Listen grim-reaper, get down here and do it yourself."

"-PLEASE, Mr. Phillip Linn! You need to go to the stage, in the lobby! The key to ole' Fredd's demise lies there!"

"How can I trust you?"

"Excuse me...?"

Phillip rolled his eyes, swung his hand around.

"You can always just SAY you're Jensk... I want proof."

"Proof... Proof, proof, proof... Alright, PROOF, I'll give you proof, Mr. Phillip Linn."

"Alright then, have it-ye."

"Close your eyes."

Phillip stomped his foot.

"What?! So you can SHANK me?!"

"NO! I need to connect with your mind, Mr. Phillip Linn."

"...God forbid... You're into this voodoo-garbage too?"

"I'm going to show you EVERYTHING."

"...Everything of what?"

"How this all started, as far as my knowledge can lead. How to stop the bear. There's so much you haven't seen."

There was a considerably heavy weight that oppressed the guard as he hung in the silence Jensk let dominate.

The disembodied man claimed to need something from him, and that THING, could only be achieved if he closed his eyes. It could've been a trap, this thing might not have been the former cop. But it also could have been the only way to stop the madness.

Breathing, Phillip blinked and raised a finger at the space in front of his face.

"Alright, JENSK," He emphasized. "-Since it IS you, I guess I won't be having to take guff from Matty-boy anymore, huh?"

The ill-speak hurt him, and Phillip shut his eyes in feelings of failure when he winced after saying the sentence. He would never MEAN anything that just flew out of his mouth, but he wanted to see what this voice did in reaction.

He would question the authenticity.

If 'Jensk' became enraged, it would be detectable if his words were forged, it was possible to tell when someone was truly angry by the way they spoke.

If 'Jensk' scoffed the idea, that would be a tipoff too.

As Phillip waited for the response, Jensk remained quiet for a minute, and eventually worked up the words, solemnly.

"...I'd... I'd hope deep in my heart you don't find Matt's departure so satisfying, Mr. Phillip Linn. You were like a week-given son to him, you know."

Oh this had to be Jensk.

Phillip chastised himself for using emotion as a test, and sighed.

"You are certainly, the man you claim to be, Jensk."

"I'm guessing that malice was intentional?"

"Quite. That hurt me more than you could imagine."

"Oh, don't worry, Mr. Phillip Linn, he's actually laughing at us right now."

"What did you say?"

"Come now, close your eyes, I have to show you everything."

"But-"

When Phillip blinked, the split-second opportunity graced Jensk's abilities, the momentary shock in the young man allotted his closed eyes for no more than a moment, but Mr. Linn found the sensation of swirling reality hitting him in a brief interval.

His vision was dark, for a moment, he didn't feel like he was... THERE.

He felt like energy in nothing.

There was no temperature caressing skin, no sight, smell, taste, hearing, or much thought.

Floating in shadow.

Quaint.

"Mr. Phillip Linn, I'm bending an unbelievable amount of rules taking you through this journey, please keep up as not to become lost."

Jensk's voice echoed in the blackness, and suddenly, Phillip felt material again.

His feet were stood in resistance to a solid surface, there was no light, a lot of dark, but he could SEE everything in said dark clearly. Picture being in the center of a giant block of gel, but you could move and function within the block.

It was hard to describe, and for as long as he lived, he would never again experience it.

But here was, zapped to magic-land by some creepy body-less voice.

His day in a nutshell, who knew?

Phillip tried to speak, but wound up sputtering nonsensically, his vocal chords felt... Reborn, like they needed to be retrained for usage. His muscles were quivering, senses blurred.

"WHA...Blugh... What...?"

"Give it time, Mr. Phillip Linn, travel to where most flesh never ventures can have... Peculiar effects."

"M-Most... W-What are you... T-Talking about?"

"Don't ask, please, I'm not in a position to explain."

"Yeah... Yeah, that's... That's fraggin' great, so, where ARE we? Mister 'No-Position'?"

"...I'm not in a position to explain. I'm sorry. Please, this way. Just move like you normally would."

"L-Like... Like this?"

"There you go! Like riding a bicycle Mr. Phillip Linn! Except you've owned the bike since birth, and you just need a little pick-me-up."

In the blackness, Phillip felt himself surging forwards, sluggishly, unable to see Jensk, or himself, in the immaterial soup.

Feeling paranoid, he badgered Jensk.

"-A-Are we in hell, or something?"

"No. I am taking you to a proper junction to show you memories and visions that will explain the ordeal of all this too you."

"That's a mouthful..."

"So is the mountain of information. Move faster, please."

"I can't even tell... W-Where my... Feet are, man..."

"You won't be able to until we move. Hurry."

"This doesn't... Feel real..."

"Too most people, it isn't."

"-J-Jensk?"

"Yes? -And please hurry!"

"-W-When you crashed your car into that monster... Before?"

"...I loved that car. Yes. What of it?"

"I just... Wanna tell you..."

"Aye?"

"That... I have never seen... Someone be such a badass in a span of two minutes. Kudos."

"I can see why Matthew had such a liking to you."

"-H-He... Was pretty badass too... Heh."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The dark world around him was perfectly vivid in detail as he swung left and right, ducked, weaved, jerked back from impacts, arced his vision for hits that either missed completely, or merely glanced the original target.

He never had difficulty seeing in shadow, perceiving the objects and creatures around him. In fact, the mechanical structure of his eyes was DESIGNED to allow him that additive.

He was like a cat, able to function, able to fight, as with any lit room or chamber.

However, against Foxy, Bonnie did not have very high hopes for landing a crucial blow.

**_WHF_**

"AGH-!"

His world swung to the left, jolting away the halls ringing his vision, the view of his opponent's sneer, his chin stung with a horrific, blunt impact, neck screaming from being pulled in a direction it was never meant to bend too.

Bonnie could take a punch, obviously. Understand, he had LIVED in this hell-hole for decades. So getting hit, kicked, bitten, and doing all those things and more to the attackers doing unto HIM, was a part of daily exercise.

When prey had stopped coming into the pizzeria, he and Chica had done terrible things to each other to placate unkempt rage.

They'd beaten each other, broke limbs, broke FACES, tore out circuits and pipes, gnawed wires and organics from open wounds. The bear was all the more content to watch gleefully, so long as the 'Teething' did not evolve to one or the other actually perishing.

Mortal blows were never part of the equation, at least, not against the avian.

But against Foxy, Freddy would have been all the more happy to see her functions cease.

There was no doubt that the strikes he had always attempted on the vulpine were with all intention of killing her, the fights he had locked in with his long time nemesis were struggles between which would claim the other's life.

Yet being enemies with someone, REAL enemies, meant that the fight did not end after one mere brawl of close call.

Bonnie was an enemy, a bane of Foxy's existence, and the tens of ragged tumbles they'd had only showed such undying hatred more. And she did, she hated him, HATED him with every fiber of her being.

The rabbit, the avian, the bear, Foxy had become so negatively effected by her troubles, her trapped life inside some stupid pizzeria, that the vulpine had grown to absolutely despise her tormentors, for she wished fates on them worse than simple death.

It was no wonder, no question, that Foxy wailed on him with all she had.

That last punch had been a kitty-slap.

"Worthless-!" **_WHK CRK CRK _**"-Conniving DOG!" **_CRK CRK_**

**_WHUM_**

"AGH!"

Bonnie flung back with his palms clasped over his fur-torn gut, her hook jamming into the metals and organic mesh before tearing out in the opposite angle.

Sparks cascaded like brotherly escorts beside tears of blackened metal, shrieking washers and bolts, a sickly red-hued string of organics, all vomiting forth from the ripping motion that blurred Foxy's hook in a retracting yank.

The rabbit ignored the flaring agony, like he had allowed his bloodied conscience to grant him, and backhanded his opponent across her face, sending the other animatronic reeling from the blow.

Spinning back, Foxy steadied her stumble with a lumber on both legs, cricked her neck, and spat a dislodged gold tooth onto the floor as Bonnie struggled to ready himself at full height. He clenched his knee, holding his palm over the grievous wound in his gut.

Pushing some of the ripped mechanics back in, he growled, reached up to block whatever blow was coming, and was surprised, almost as much as Foxy herself, to see the vulpine throw back her arms, kick both legs up.

She made a near pole-vault beeline towards him, jamming her heels into the fur and metal of his barreled chest, the air left him in a great barking wheeze, and Bonnie went airborne down the hall they still brawled in.

He rolled down the tiled floor, giving off sharp omits of metal, cracking spaces in the marble where his claws tried to grab something to stop his motion.

Eventually, he slid to a full stop, drawing a final thrice set of blackened crags down the tile where his nails drew above his flattened face to halt his travel.

"-I'm DONE with this!" Foxy stormed, running over to his fallen form, he felt her hook dig into a groove by his left shoulder, impale him again, and latch. "I'm done with YOU!"

Hoisting him up to a good height, he draped like a ragdoll, claws barely managing to grasp in her direction, before she tore him off her hook, and the hold of her right arm, via her foot.

**_CLACK_**

Another indent in his torso, and Foxy batted him a whole foot away, where he crashed into one of the rear-entrance doors of the pizzeria, flattening the entry with a splintering of wood and dislodging of metal hinges.

He fell and spun into the darkened room beyond, clattering onto the tiled floor again, limbs kicking and flailing.

"-YOU BITCH!" He screamed. "You've never been able to win by yourself! You failure! YOU COWARD!"

"That bird, and your little boyfriend aren't coming to help you this time..." She grumbled, stepping into the doorway to stand before him in the lit arch.

Bonnie grinned up at her down there, made too stand up.

"That 'Bird' is probably eating your meatbag friend, right now, honey-"

**_WHK_**

"YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH!"

Her fist collided with the back of his cranium, forcing the rabbit to chew on the floor again as his face planted, arms splayed on both sides.

"-You're wrong, B'. You wanna know why? Huh?"

"-Ugh-" He sputtered, rising off the dirtied tile a tad. "-Should I care, Foxy?"

"You SHOULD, because me and my friends KILLED her."

"...Did you now?"

"Chica's burning in the hell she deserved to be in from the beginning." She said coldly, baring teeth.

Bonnie chuckled below her, pumping his fist into the floor with a mute hysteric.

"-A-About TIME one of us fuckin' croaked! A-ha! Ha!"

Foxy's eyes widened, her jaw set, she reared back with her foot again, and kicked him so hard, square in the head, that he doubled over in a cartwheel through the air, straight into the wall of the rear room they had been shifted too.

There the rabbit cracked the plaster in the shape of his barreled body, denting heating pipes, ruining the wall itself.

He tried to pry himself free, but as he did so, Foxy threw herself in a russet tornado at him.

The wall broke, and pavement chilled their hides.

-0-0-0-0-0-

"Nobody really knows when it... Started, per say.

Back in the ages of untold eras, when humanity evolved on the prospects of misguided religion, violence, and depravity, the evil that swelled from all of man's foulest deeds bloomed into what we call 'Baphomet'.

What 'Baphomet' is, nobody, not even I, can explain.

In fact, there is debate that the forces created by Baphomet, ARE actually Baphomet itself.

Whatever the real identity and specifics, the fact is and stands dominant, that the essence of Baphomet has been encasing people in hellish nightmares for centuries.

The animatronics, three of them, are direct creations of the goat-headed atrocity.

However, the suits themselves, the mechanical physical beings that they call themselves, were not forged under the demonic gaze of this horror.

Whatever they were, before they were children's animatronics in some rural pizzeria, is also unknown too me, but their origins are as heinous and destructive as the malevolence that birthed them. They are hundreds of years old.

They feed off of misery.

They feed off of despair.

They feed off of death.

I show you these images, these thoughts, that I have gathered over my life, because I need you, WE need you, to be the one hero to stop these monsters where no one else has been able too. You may believe yourself a simple person, with no specialty, but we all know otherwise.

You are a good soul, you naturally help others, you care for those who are weak, stand beside the strong of justice, and you frown upon the thought of evil.

My friend was but a mere single man against the tide of red, and, finally, he can rest, where the stress of this... WAR, will no longer plague his life.

Are you... Following so far, Mr. Phillip Linn?"

"I believe I am... Yes."

"Can you SEE, everything I say too you? This is very important."

"I can."

"Good. Then you understand even more of these ancient evils."

"Yeah... I just can't fathom all of it at once, ya know..."

"You will. You have a strong mind."

"Thanks..."

"Mr. Phillip Linn, my time with you is short, as, I have told you, I technically am not 'Allowed' too be here with you tonight."

"Who says?"

"Mr. Phillip Linn, I'm-"

"-NOT AT LIBERTY TOO SAY, blah-blah-blah, save me the speech, Shakespeare..."

"Ha. Good on you, Mr. Phillip Linn. I'd have most enjoyed your acquaintance."

"Well... Jensk, why CAN'T you do that still, exactly?"

"Mr. Phillip Linn..."

"Just, tell me anything, Jensk. I really need to know, for myself."

"I can't... I can't SAY."

"Please try in a way, ANY way."

"Our lord won't allow it, Mr. Phillip Linn."

"Our... Lord?"

"Are you a religious man?"

"Never in my- Wait, Jensk, OUR lord? THE lord? Are you-?"

"-Wait, hold on."

"-W-What is it? W-Wait, Jensk! Tell me! What's happened to you?"

"There is another presence here, Mr. Phillip Linn."

"I... I think I feel it... What the hell is this shit, some Star Wars 'Use the Force' cliche?"

"Very funny."

"Not really."

"Mr. Phillip Linn! No! It is upon us!"

"WHAT is?!"

"RESIST!"

"RESIST WHAT-?!"

...

...

"Jensk...?"

...

...

"JENSK!"

...

...

"Oh... Oh no... I..."

...

...

"JEENNSSKKK-!"

"**_RISE NOT, THE HAIL FOR AID FROM THOSE WHO CANNOT REACH YOU, FLESHLING._**"

"Who are... Who are you?"

"**_I AM THE FLAME THAT TAMPERS WITH THE OIL OF TIME. THE FLAME IN THE HEART OF MAN._**"

"That doesn't make sense."

"**_YOU ARE YOUNG. A SPEC IN THE EXPANSE OF SPACE. YOU KNOW NOTHING OF THE AETHER YOU STIR._**"

"... What are you?"

"**_YOU HAVE AN ALLY IN THE MATERIAL EXISTENCE. ONE OF MY KIN. MY CHILDREN. A DEFECT. SHE HARBORS YOU AS NEWEST SALVATION._**"

"... S-So you're...?"

"**_-THE FLAME THAT BURNS THE FLESH OF THE DEAD AND THE LIVING IN WAR. THE FLAME THAT SINGES THROUGH THE SKULLS OF THE ATROCITIES DIRECTED TOO THE INNOCENT. I AM THE FLAME THAT KNOWS NO STOPPAGE OR FEAR. I, AM FEAR._**"

"Baphomet? YOU'RE, Baphomet?"

"**_TITLES ACCUMULATE TO NOTHING IF ACTION IS NOT PRESENTED AS PROOF TO YOUR MAJESTY. CALL US WHAT YOU WISH._**"

"Us?"

"**_WE ARE THE FLAME._**"

"You are obviously the piece of shit who made those crazy killer stuff-animals..."

"**_YOUR MORTAL TONGUE INSULTS MY VERY EXISTENCE. YOU SPEAK WITH SUCH UNTRAINED SLANG. YOU ARE A PEST, A RODENT, IN NEED OF EXTERMINATION FROM OUR DYNASTY._**"

"So, Big-Head, there's more of you?"

"**_WE ARE OMINPRESENT. WE ARE THE FLAME._**"

"Why did you create these... Animatronics?"

"**_SERVANTS IN THE MATERIAL REALM EXPAND OUR INFLUENCE TO THOSE WHO CANNOT PERCIEVE OUR REALITY. PERCIEVE OUR EXISTENCE. PERCIEVE WHAT NO MAN'S EVIL COULD HOPE TO TRULY WROUGHT._**"

"They were made, so you could... Create chaos?"

"**_YOU ARE PERCEPTIVE. BUT STILL INFERIOR._**"

"Why do you tell me these things, if I'm trying to stop you?"

"**_... HOW DO YOU STOP DEATH?_**"

"What?"

"**_HOW. DO YOU. STOP. DEATH? INSOLENT WORM._**"

"That's very generalized..."

"**_IT IS A QUESTION IN ITS SIMPLEST FORM, YOUR MIND IS NOT EXPANDED TO CLENCH ITS FULLEST DEPTH AND LOGICAL RESPONSE- WHICH IS, YOU CANNOT STOP IT._**"

"Everybody dies eventually..."

"**_CHAOS ALWAYS FORMS FROM MAN'S BLUNDERS, EVENTUALLY._**"

"So you're Satan? The devil? HELL?"

"**_WE ARE THE FLAME. OMNIPRESENT._**"

"You aren't just an evil monster than."

"**_OUR SERVANTS PREVAIL. WE DO NOT INTEND TOO FACE DISRUPTION FROM YOU, WORM._**"

"Disruption for just KILLING people?"

"**_WE ARE THE FLAME. THE LEGION, OUR HAND._**"

"YOU, are a dirtbag."

"MR. PHILLIP LINN! Keep resisting!"

"-Jensk?"

"**_WE GROW TIRED OF THESE GAMES. THE FLAME WILL GROW, VERMIN._**"

"Not as long as I live."

"**_YOUR PUNY SPARK WILL BE EXTINGUISHED._**"

"Is that so? Is that SO?"

"**_YOUR ANTICS ARE DISRUPTIVE AND MEANINGLESS._**"

"If you are so confident in my failure... Why not come here to assure of it yourself?"

"**_WE DO NOT NEED TO BE PRESENT FOR THE LEGION TO SUCCEED._**"

"No. You are wrong. You CANNOT be present, if and when the 'Legion' succeeds. You rely on the darker evils of people. So if people stick to being goodie-two-shoes, you, are powerless."

"**_YOU... ARE WRONG._**"

"No. I am not. I'm going back, I'm ending your 'Servants' and I'm going to hunt down any more traces of evil you still have taxiing around, and I'm gonna FUCK, THEM, UP."

"Mr. Phillip Linn! You're almost there!"

"Almost where?!"

"It was the honor of an afterlife speaking with you, my friend. I hope one age, our paths cross again."

"Jensk, wait! WAIT! Where are you going?! Where am I going?!"

"Back to save the people, Mr. Phillip Linn. I re-ascend."

"So... You are-"

"Mangle says she will watch to make sure you succeed. Be sure to drink some tea for the victory, too."

"WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?!"

"Farewell! Phillip!"

...

...

...

You wanna know what was the scariest about the dream-like experience?

That last voice was Matthew's.

-0-0-0-0-0-


	28. Chapter 28

_**Hey before I get into anything crazy, I want to recommend another Fanfiction for Five Nights at Freddy's I have been reading, that was written by an awesome-sauce buddy of mine on here, named Mr. Veliz, he's written a boxing-oriented sport story off of Five Nights at Freddy's called 'Three Bouts at Freddy's' and he is off to an excellent start!**_

_**I think he has a way with words that absolutely draw you into the material of the story he is writing, and the sports-like action in it makes it all the more appealing to a larger audience, I believe. Mr. Veliz is rockin' da house with 'Three Bouts at Freddy's'- I'm following it, you should too!**_

_**-Thanks peeps SADNESS WARNING AGAIN.**_

_**Dude, someone's gonna hate me at this rate. :/**_

_**-Don**_

Chapter 28.

At the Last Moment.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_"How much for that Panasonic in the window? I want to buy it and make it my, FRIEEENNNNDDD! "_**

**_-Writ 99 of Surveillance (Musical Edition)_**

When the clearance between immaterial and material was crossed, a surreal wave of nausea, lightheadedness, dizziness, fogginess, and every other head-based feeling of physical and mental confusion, tidal waved into his skull, all at once.

So, what would any sensible person who got hit with vertigo on top of ten OTHER counts of vertigo, do?

Well the answer was simple, and messy.

Phillip Linn reentered reality vomiting on the floor of the storage room he had been zapped away from.

Finishing the strange, supernatural transition back to real life, the young man doubled over on his knees, heaved, and emptied his gut onto the tiled floor with but a few coughs. He hacked, sputtered, and spit repeatedly into the mess he made, gasping for breath, and sweating profusely.

Droplets of exhausted perspiration fell from his soaked face, he kept trying to close his mouth, and wound up baring it all open again with a few dry heaves. His insides didn't exactly HURT from the amount of lunch-losing motions, but he felt disgusting from all the muck.

Spitting again, he wiped his lipline on the back of his hand, grimaced, and drew that down the side of his pant leg.

Staring down at the zone of his rather nasty reaction to whatever method of energy had brought him back here, Phillip gave himself a brief time to think on the developments with, what had apparently been all along, Jensk.

The man had never really BEEN here, and now, that Phillip had seen just how extensive Freddy had been in his tour of death on Earth, he had been introduced to something... Evil.

But it resonated differently than that, just plain old 'The thing was evil!'-

Imagine, for a second, that you one day came into contact with an entity, a thing, a person, maybe even a deity, that had reaped suffering and destruction on a unprecedented scale since the beginning of time, and had not committed a single one of the crimes it caused, but rather had others commit them.

Imagine the pure hate that filled the creature's words as it basically could tempt people into doing horrible things, just by, with all bluntness, ASKING nicely.

All of the evilest people in the world, dictators, genocidal warlords, gang leaders, cult heads, the worst serial killers... They all stemmed from the temptations of the monster you had just spoken with.

It was deep, terrible, revolting, just the knowledge that you had been ADDRESSED by it, was enough to make some feel the need to end their own existences.

Phillip had been spoken too by the Devil, if that was, what Baphomet WAS.

He didn't even know if Baphomet was a single entity, or just a giant conglomerate of negative energy.

For some reason, Phillip weighed in that Baphomet was ALL of those things, and more that humans could not understand.

It was frightening, the scale of the mess he had become involved in.

He swallowed to clear his muck-ridden throat, and blinked slowly.

"-I... Don't even know what too say..." He finally muttered to no one in particular. "-This is... Unbelievable."

Phil's legs shook profusely as he made too stand, folding his hands over his knees.

"-B-But... God damn it... They still didn't tell me how to kill the bear..." Anger leeched away at his attitude upon remembering that. "-I don't know... I don't know how to kill him."

He cursed, an spun to view the door that had been shut on him, stepping towards it, he clasped the handle, tugged, and felt something shift in the locking mechanism.

The broken state of the door looked fragile, moreso than it had when he had been zapped to dream-land.

Sneering, Phillip held the handle with both hands, yanked, and stumbled back.

**_CRASH!_**

Splintering wood, clinging hinges and metal parts, the door flung aside, and tumbled onto the floor in a series of clacks and splinters, it impacted the wall, and slid down to settle on the floor with a final bark.

Having leapt back from the burst, Phillip grumbled at the broken entry, eyeing it suspiciously.

"I'm screwed." He muttered. "-How am I supposed to stop him if I can't KILL him..."

"THAT, is precisely, the question, Mr. Linn."

"WHA-?!"

Phil cartwheeled to the side in a tumbling flail of limbs from the second, sudden voice to his right, outside the door frame he now strolled through.

Completely forgetting the door, the broken mess it was in, the dream-like phase he had entered, and now, seeing the destroyed state of the hall, the FIGHT he and Foxy had been in, that she was STILL in, Phillip was presented the final obstacle.

With crossed arms over a barreled body, Freddy frowned from his stance in the hallway's center, teeth visibly grinding against each other.

Phil lowered his tenseness a bit, sized him up, and heard a horrible sound of breakage over his shoulder.

Checking in a quick glance when Freddy looked too, Phillip couldn't believe his eyes when he saw two large figures, literally smash through one of the back walls of the pizzeria, into the night outside.

He heard struggling, the shouts of Foxy and her opponent, his jaw slackened, and he swung to view the bear again.

"-W-Well," He mustered every brave, and perhaps foolish, cell in his body. "-It's just us, Fredd'."

"Indeed, Mr. Linn, indeed." The bear huffed. "You know, no one except Matthew had ever gotten this deep into our lives. No one."

"Yeah, how about asking your KFC-wannabe in hell, Mangle took her down."

"At a cost."

"I think she'd argue it was worth it. So, you knew already?"

"Yes. I knew from the moment it happened."

"You don't seem... Phased."

"Perhaps I am, perhaps I'm not," The bear shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I have a goal to achieve in killing you."

"Supposedly, I was to be enlightened, to how to kill YOU,"

"You contacted the higher other, I understand."

"Baphomet?"

"The higher other has many titles, child," Freddy rolled his eyes. "-I've heard all the names from A-to-Z, 'Baphomet!' 'Lucifer' 'Hell' 'The Devil' 'Dante's Inferno' 'Hades' 'The Underworld'... Every last one."

"And... That THING, made you?"

"Quite possibly. We might be... CLOSER, than you could hope to understand, Mr. Linn."

"Does that matter if I win?"

"-Who really says, ANYONE, will WIN tonight, boy? WHO SAYS? Jensk? The higher other? You need to read up on how chaos works," Freddy grumbled. "For centuries, I have prowled nights such as this in many a form... I've had my fair share of 'Heroes' Phillip Linn, what makes you any different?"

"Define heroes."

"Pfft," The bear shook his head. "-You ever fire a gun in your life? Besides tonight? Ever swing a sword? Fire a bow? Operate a war beast that could easily, mow down a hundred people in seconds? Have you?"

"I've never done any of those things."

"-Which means you literally are NOTHING, I have confronted humans with ten times the determination, the skill and bravery, and I have beaten ALL of them."

For the first time in the whole conversation, the animatronic smiled.

"I'm going to step on you like a fucking bug."

Phillip started to make up some kind of smart, whit-filled response for the cocky statement.

But, as he examined the proclamation within his mind more and more...

Phillip realized that the bear was right.

He had a can of mace, and what the heck would that do against the demonic leader of a pack of rabid-freaks?

He HAD had, a kitchen knife, but that snapped in half, and again, what would a flimsy piece of kitchen cutlery do against warlord-man here?

There WAS a gun...

Yet a quick feel by his pocket proved the vanishing act of Matt's magnum, had not reached an end.

He was dead.

"-You-You know, Freddy..."

"Mhm?"

_Say nothing. Allow us._

Phillip heard a hundred voices all at once, thin, soft, and soothing to his ears, there was suddenly a chorus of unseen speakers that fractured the grim air of the hall.

Going wide eyed, he refrained from bolstering the surprised reaction like when he'd first heard Jensk speak from beyond, but Phillip still swept eyes across the cieling, the walls, behind Freddy, and came up with only darkness and damaged tile.

Oh this was great, he had figured- Now there were MORE voices in his head. Fragging fabulous.

_We will help you._

_-Will all help you._

_Stand still._

"-Listen, human, I really have lost any form of patience I started this, FINE, night with... Speak up already,"

"-I..."

As Phillip started to work his mouth, he felt lightheaded, again, like when he had been transitioned back from the dream realm.

A growing surge of pure energy whirled like a tornado around him, he felt light, as a snowflake, and he felt powerful and renewed.

Whilst the confidence of refreshing light smashed through his system, physically, he began to SEE the white wisps of astral material swirling in a cloud around him. Whimsical blurs of ivory swung and danced under his arms, around his legs and hips, hugged his head and shoulders.

Phillip Linn was encased in a hurricane of ghostly visages, and Freddy had already taken a step forwards, nails readied, when he leapt back from the torrential tsunami of spiritual haze encasing the human.

"T-That... That is IMPOSSIBLE," He snapped. "That wasn't supposed to happen. N-Not with you!"

"-W-What is this...?" Phillip mumbled.

"He doesn't even REALIZE what you weaklings are DOING FOR HIM!"

Freddy looked like he was ranting at the bubble of white around him, not... Well, HIM.

What was this stuff?

_We are the lost, the victims._

_Those slain._

_They killed us._

"Oh my God..." He said. "-Y-You're all-?"

_People._

_Men._

_Women._

They were ghosts.

Spirits.

And by the anger the bear was displaying, they were helping him.

Phillip watched as Freddy backed away, and the whirlpool of mist began to recede.

_You have been shown the Key._

_You were enlightened._

_You are chosen._

_Fight him._

The voices spoke in disorganized manner, they claimed of his 'Chosen' status, his enlightenment...

What had Jensk bestowed on him?

He didn't know if this was good or bad.

_Hit him._

_Fight! _

_You can win!_

"F-Fight him... A-Are you all nuts?!" He barked to the voices. "He'll tear me apart!"

_WE won't let him._

Looking down at his own arms, Phillip saw a very hue of white forming an encasing outline of his skin, his limbs, his body and head, a cushion of form-hugging energy that spanned from his cranium, to his toes.

It was like these spirits were forming a suit around him.

Phil felt strong, he felt refreshed, more than he ever had in his entire life. All the exhaustion in his system was gone, the ache of his clawed leg was non-existent, and an unnatural pride swelled in his stomach and chest.

He reached up with his hand, and clenched his fist, flinching when the white aura around him pulsated brighter.

_HIT HIM!_

_FIGHT!_

The voices continued to egg him on.

So Phillip looked at Freddy, shakily took a step forwards, and finished the statement he had never thought up.

"You know, Freddy," He smirked. "-Evil doesn't always prevail."

The bear opened his jaws to speak, but Phillip had swung his hand in a back-lashed motion.

To his astonishment, his limb did not harmlessly slack off the animatronic's barreled chest.

In fact, there was the loudest shriek of metal he had ever heard in his life, a fling of sparks and black debris.

Freddy flew back down the hall he came, impacting the floor, and slid down the tile in a horrid screech of dragging metal. The bear flung out his arms and legs to catch himself, and eventually, ground to a halt near the archway to the lobby.

He flung himself in wheels to stand up, grabbing the ruined hinges of the still smacked-in door, and throwing himself to his feet.

Freddy glanced down, and saw a ragged gash in his gut, all the way from his top left rib section, to the lowest boundary of his right hip. Brownish-red goop oozed between blackened shrieks of electricity and oil, his paw cupped the center of it, he gasped, and watched the encroaching human.

"-Y-YOU ALL WILL PAY FOR THIS!"

_Keep advancing._

_Not much time._

"Oh I plan on that..." Phil grunted, stepping down the hall, and illuminating the darkness around himself with a white tinge. "These spirits tell me, they're all YOUR victims, Fredd'."

"T-THEY LIE!"

"Oh no, they're telling the truth. So, I'M not the one to stop you tonight..." The security guard smirked.

"WE'RE ALL, finishing you."

Freddy brought his fist forward in defiance, but Phillip held his smaller hand out, and the bear's bunched claw stopped mid-swing, as if clenched by an invisible titan's palm.

The monster went wide-eyed, and Phillip sneered, throwing his hands forwards.

Freddy careened through the arch, taking half the ruined structure with him in a tear of wood and metal, and slammed through every single table of the dining area with a horrid series of crashes.

Like a ragdoll thrown through a pile of wood, the animatronic soared and slapped into each table, splitting it down the middle, all the way to the aluminum cover over the front entrance, still untouched from where Foxy had brought it down.

The bear rolled a final time on the floor, laying in a sprawled heap on the tile, surrounded by splinters, torn organics from his own body, and a growing puddle of oil and scab-colored leakage.

For the amount of time that Freddy had spent doing what he was best at, which, was simply causing destruction, he had said all facts when describing his, at least what he THOUGHT would have bee, his newest victory.

He had always been confident against every brave person to come against him...

But never had the energies of negativity created from his time-spanning rampage, HELPED the one fighting him.

Now this stupid, twig-thin, insignificant little human just stepped towards him, enwrapped in the hugging glow of supernatural energy, with all the confidence he had when dismissing the acts of those trying to stop him.

Sputtering on the floor, Freddy drew a paw down the now worsened gash on his belly, let his jaw slacken.

"-T-This isn't possible..." He ranted. "THIS ISN'T POSSIBLE-!"

**_CRK!_**

"Shut the hell up!"

Phillip's foot lashed out, there was a spark of brightness, and Freddy flew clean through the aluminum cover, AND the door behind it, with a crunch of metal and breakage of glass.

He sailed down the stone steps, pieces of glass following him in a rolling tumble down the last step, onto the concrete of the sidewalk. He barked and cursed, feeling small parts of his internals become loose or cracked.

"THIS-! IS NOT-H-HOW THIS WAS TOO END!" He screamed between flails, voice pitched unevenly from his rocking head.

Freddy came to a ragged stop on the concrete of the sidewalk, face stone-still to gaze at the dark sky above.

He chattered his teeth, turning slowly on the ground to see Phillip approaching down the stairs in a small jog, a frown set on his features.

For all the unbelievable power flowing through his veins, Phillip Linn was not able to appreciate the superhuman strength and ability granted too him through a thick sheet of uncontrollable anger. This bear was already an evil dirtbag, mind you, but he'd murdered two of Phil's newest buddies, right in front of him.

He figured THIS was how he was too kill the bear.

He'll just beat him into a steaming pulp.

"I've had IT, you piece of crap!" Phillip shouted. "-I'm killing you! -KILLING YOU!"

"This... H-Human... Human! HUMAN! Y-You still won't win!"

"Oh... Just drop it!"

"N-NO! No! You see-!"

Right as Freddy went to open his mouth again, Phillip's vision was drawn towards the back of the parking lot to two rustling shadows.

The black shapes tangled with each other, closer towards the edge of the pavement's influence.

Even without seeing details, Phillip could make out the outline of Bonnie and his best ally in this whole mess.

Foxy grunted, barked and spat, beating the rabbit to a pulp in a twisting fight of curses and thrown limbs.

From the distance, Bonnie looked like he'd been gashed, stabbed, punched and dented everywhere... And right as Phillip finished that light observation, Foxy just shoved off her foe when she saw him, glowing in the night.

She was panting, arms still raised, she watched him with wide eyes overlooking the prone bear beneath him.

She took a step forwards, and then, she vanished into the treeline when Bonnie recovered.

Having been distracted, the rabbit took the opportunity to lunge forwards, and wrap himself around her midsection. The two animatronics rolled into a hill, downwards sloped, from the pizzeria's outskirts, and the sounds of their fighting faded.

"FOXY!" Phillip cried, taking a step in the indicated direction.

_Stop the source, first._

_-Can't back away now._

_He will overpower us eventually._

Stopping in his tracks, Phillip found himself torn between the orders of the ghosts helping him fight Freddy, and his mind for having him save Foxy.

"B-But..." He debated too long.

"-HUMAN!"

"Aw crap!"

The white energy covering him flickered and sputtered, he found himself flinging onto his back, the air around him rushing as he fell.

Phillip saw two pairs of red eyes glaring down at him, Freddy holding his legs down with pressed knees, and both arms hanging above the prone gaurd's head.

"THEY CAN'T KEEP YOU SAFE FOREVER!"

A fist came down, and, if Phillip hadn't been shielded, it would have crushed his skull.

**_SHSK_**

A hissing sound emitted when the white barrier flickered from the impact.

"DIE!" Freddy screamed, bringing his fist down again. "DIE!"

**_SHSK_**

**_SHSK_**

**_SHSK_**

The shield was fading, Phillip felt the power in him begin to fade.

He reached up and swung his arm, batting the animatronic across the face with a well placed strike, that tore away a fling of sparks and debris, and ripped half of the bear's jaw away in a great tear.

With half of his endo-laden teeth exposed in a black trench, Freddy kept punching, and Phillip realized, that he wouldn't be able to KILL him by just inflicting damage.

Right as he thought that, the barrier folded like a cheap lawn chair.

**_SKS!_**

It flicked away, and one of the punched landed straight into his gut.

**_CRK_**

"AGHH!" He cried, doubling over as best Freddy's knees would allow him. "-AGH! O-OH SHIT-!"

"SEE THAT?! CONFIDENCE! I've won with it from the START, meatsack!" The bear mocked with his damaged chops. "-FROM THE START!"

_Quickly!_

_The chest._

_Push us._

_The chest!_

The ghostly voices called faintly too Phillip.

His vision blurred from the pain wracking in his gut, the young man was hailed by the spirits that had been able to shield him.

They told him to aim for the bear's chest.

But... What did that mean?

Glancing at his quivering hands, Phillip saw the last shreds of white energy trailing in his very palms, like sheens of light reflected from water shone on one's skin.

He understood.

"So, Phillip Linn! Looks like I'll have to improvise with the hare," Freddy grinned. "-Never had a chance."

"A-Aw you know what, man?!" Phillip barked, shoving his opened hands upwards. "-FUCK YOU!"

The bear's grin was swept away.

And for the first time in the whole week that he had terrorized the guard-

The evil mastermind of demonic horror, SCREAMED.

Freddy screamed with such a blood-curdling passion, that someone miles away, could be fully informed of the painstaking dread that filled the animatronic as he was literally consumed from the inside out, by things he had kept under hell for generations.

The spirits of all his victims, of all the three killers', all the people that had been effected by his chaos, were obviously, NOT happy with him.

Thus, when granted the opportunity to reclaim vengeance by the guard, they were all TOO happy, to destroy Freddy on an atom's-grade level.

Light shot from Phillip's hands for a split second, a whoosh of cloudy energy zipping up into the gash on the bear's gut, and bundling inside his organics and mechanical sections.

Streams of illumination broke through hundreds of tiny holes that began to burn an singe through the bear's fur and hide, his eyes lit up like lamps, his nose and mouth and ears and EVERYTHING on him, started to glow.

Throughout the whole time, he screamed and screamed and screamed more, as hundreds of years of pent up negativity ate him alive.

Wisps of spiritual energy slurred the air around him, IN him, and above and below him.

Slowly, with the show of flares, Freddy began to flake away, like chipping paint was lost in a flow of water, into the lit up nighttime sky. His fur, his hide, the mechanics, all turned black and floated away in millions of feather-like particles.

He convulsed, collapsed to his knees, his arms fell off and disintegrated on the pavement separately.

The bear dematerialized at the same time he shook himself to pieces, and Phillip squinted through the light to watch the whole defeat of the greatest evil ever to plague a children's establishment.

"-_HUMAN!_" Freddy's ragged voice gurgled. "_THEEREEE WASS-SS-SIXTHH!_"

**_SKS!_**

...

And then, there was a flicker of air.

There was a flicker of air, and Freddy, the lights, the destruction wracking his body, all vanished in the blink of an eye.

Quiet rang throughout the lot in a dizzying continuance of silence.

Phillip had... Won.

He had won, right?

"I... I think... I think I did it..." He whispered to no one in particular. "-I think I did it."

Clambering on the pavement to crawl closer to where the bear HAD been, Phillip's worries were quelled by the presence of a single object.

Yet before Phil could examine the black bulge, he felt a weight in his pocket, and knew, that Jensk had finally finished the disappearing act of his Matt's sidearm.

He pressed a hand to his hoody, and felt the curvature of the .357 pistol.

Looking upwards, Phillip smiled.

And then he smiled at what he had originally gone to examine.

Because all that was left of the bear, and his pure essence of chaos, was the little, black colored, smudge stained top hat that been on his cranium since the beginning of the week, and since the beginning of him taking on the form of that accursed animatronic.

Whatever Freddy had been beforehand, if anything at all, no longer mattered.

Phil took the hat in his hands, and turned it in his grasp as he shakily stood to his full height, wincing from the pain in his gut.

Frowning at the tiny piece of apparel, he let it fall back down to the pavement, where it settled silently in the same place it had been left to rot. Phillip smiled.

"I DID it."

In the backdrop, a roar of crashing inferno was muffled somewhere in the pizzeria, and orange illumination began to stir on the onyx pavement of the parking lot. The young man looked up, and saw a lick of flame rolling from one of the windows.

Then from another.

And another.

Black smoke pillared from the roof.

Without a word, he hobbled towards the trees where Foxy and their last enemy, had tumbled into.

-0-0-0-0-0-

When the hammer fell, it always fell hard. Pain and discomfort had been something she had grown into, something that was accepted, accustomed with, at the best of times, dismissed shortly after it was dealt with.

She had been bitten, scratched, punched, kicked, kneed, clocked, and hell, she'd inflicted all that and more on the ones that hurt her. For twenty years Foxy was beaten and enacted beatings in retort, and for twenty years she had been robbed of the basic happiness every living creature deserved.

Now she had earned all of that back within the span of a few days, her joy, positivity... For a while she even LOOKED nice... She looked nice, and she was so happy with it... She felt pretty. Good God, she'd felt BEAUTIFUL after all that time of matted fur and broken hide...

**_CRASH!_**

And after all that effort, all that work...

**_THUD_**

This bastard was undoing it.

No matter how much her resolve had held up, or her emotions had broiled to make her so angry, that she felt unstoppable, Bonnie was still as quick and precise as ever, and it didn't help that he was no longer confined to the cramped halls she could hide in.

After the last crashing of fractured glass, she felt something clank, snap off of its holdings, and tumble into the lower mechanical sections of her gut. She wheezed, grunted, and rolled off of the indented hood and subsequently smashed windshield of a parked car by the dark road.

Like a ragdoll, she had throttled Bonnie, and now it was his turn.

The second she kissed the pavement, two claws grabbed her shoulders, hoisted her up to a wobbled stand. A balled fist clacked metallically off the side of her jaw, and she spun in a horrifically dazed reel from the impact.

He planted his heel into her pelvis, she appeared physically blurry with the velocity she was tossed at, and rolled onto the sidewalk with a series of stone-like thuds.

Leaning on her forearms, she spat a bolt onto the ground and bore teeth.

"So THIS, is what the big finality is then, EH?!" Bonnie stomped across the street with completely no regard for the tears and wounds she had inflicted. "-THIS, is your big plan after twenty years."

"-T-this..." She sputtered. "-Is just the finishing act, Bon'..."

"Oh God, SHUT. UP." His foot knocked her head in a backwards spiral, Foxy ended her travel in a sprawl across the concrete with her back compressed flatly.

"Enough of this bullshit, you hear me? ENOUGH!" Bonnie stood over her, his left arm slumping again as its crippled state couldn't be held off by his blood rage any further. "-Here's the thing, you defiling, little rebellious bitch,"

"-H-Ha! Classic... Bon'! Hey?"

"-You destroyed the FREAK," Foxy huffed when his foot compressed into her gut with a creak of stressed metal. "-You hobbled, the BEAR, you think there is anything holding me by a leash anymore? ANYTHING? No. No, there is NOTHING."

There was a hiss of sliding tissue when Bonnie's nails tested their sheathes.

"-The old man's dead, that flailing moron you were buddies with is DEAD, the freak is DEAD, Fredd's incapacitated, oh... And your guard friend is GOING to be dead..." He shrugged with comically induced giggle. "-The fuck are YOU gonna do about it to stop me?"

"You keep thrashing ME, you bastard, NOT HIM."

"Oh... Still wanting a shag with your meatbag?" He waved a paw dismissively. "When are you going to understand that if I don't get to him, Freddy will? Or what of the other endos? The odds seem pretty stacked."

"He WILL stop this..."

"Nope. Because when the endos corner him, I'm going to stop them, and then, I'm going to KILL him, MYSELF."

"YOU WILL BE DEAD!"

Bonnie cackled when her injuries became irrelevant, her hook slashed out, sparks and ragged debris flew from his right kneecap, ending Bonnie's stand in a half-fall.

His paws raised in a defensive curl when her hook descended for his head, instead embedding in the girth of his wounded arm. Foxy curled her chops, and did the last thing he expected of her. She completely ignored his responsive side-wind, angling her hip back for the fist to graze air.

Bonnie grunted to the hook still latched into him, he bore fangs, reached upwards to relief himself of the hassle.

But then of course, Foxy grabbed her own wrist, twisted in a shriek of steel, and yanked.

The hare SCREAMED.

He screamed louder and with more passion than he ever did in his twenty years of fist-fights with said subject. His jaws splayed, and the most blood-curdling howl released itself raggedly. A stump of torn mesh and metal sparked and burped soot by his left shoulder, he fell to the same knee again and clasped the mortal wound.

Foxy stumbled backwards, sneered, and flicked her right arm to rid herself of the limp limb that sparked and coughed, vomited thin trails of scab-colored organics, still impaled on the girth of her hook.

It clanked away somewhere on the street, and she took shaking steps towards him again.

"S-See that, Bon'?" She scoffed weakly. "-You take my repairs away, I-I take your ARM..."

Now they were both kneeling. Surrounded by the debris of torn up cars and their own mauled bodies, the fight was ending so similarly as it had for the last twenty years. There was no winner, only mutual understanding for both parties to hobble away.

The past was cruel, and it clung like no tomorrow it seemed.

"-Y-You... You IDIOT..." He shakily grumbled. "-You useless, ugly, outcast FREAK."

"Play nice, piece of shit..." She snickered in a near whisper. "-I promised... That one day... I'd kill you. Go down with dignity..."

"DIGNITY..."

"Yeah, dig-"

**_CLUNK_**

"I don't DO, dignity... I do DEATH..."

It was always hopeless when the tiny flicker of light came out in the great void for her. Whenever victory was almost achieved, when good would prevail, it was stomped out, and as Bonnie straddled over her with his one arm raised in the air, Foxy's weakened state lost all fight.

If this was how the battle would be continuously drawn out, there was no use.

She just wanted it all to be done.

Still, with a blank, defiant stare, Foxy watched as those wicked sharp nails aimed for her neck, the intent of severing it, and her life, becoming apparent.

"TWENTY YEARS... Right here. Twenty. Years. Fox'... That guard wasted your life. And as a final insult, you still have a thing for him..." He grinned through the unbearable pain. "-You're weak. I'm INSULTED to be one of your kind."

"Eat shit..."

"In hell we will, Freddy ensured that... I'll keep an eye out for ya..."

The fist whistled in the air, the world was hazier, and for the longest of times, Foxy expected it to actually be painless.

Then she wouldn't be miserable anymore. She could feel happy in wherever people went when they died. She hoped she see Phillip and Matt up there.

For a second, none of the physical world mattered anymore. It was obviously lost, and she was finished. At that second, Foxy would have died with a smile on her chops, broken and beaten, she would have been happy.

-'WOULD have', being the words...

**_CLACK!_**

Death didn't show at that moment, the nighttime street flashed white, and Bonnie grew still in his stance over Foxy.

His plastic eyes bugged, his jaw didn't work.

**_CLACK!_**

The hare's shoulder thrust forwards, debris and oil flew out from a ragged hole that burst from his hide in a flurry of sparks and black liquid. Bonnie wheezed, his claw's nails jerked from descending on Foxy to graze over the damage.

"Get off of her..."

"H-Human..."

"Get off of her now, you son of a bitch..."

"-Y-You want me off?! OFF OF HER YOU SAY?!"

Bonnie's eyes darted over his shoulder, than to his pelvis where he still pinned Foxy.

Said vulpine gawked with too much shock to speak.

"-N-NEVER! 'Hell with you!"

"I said..."

**_CLACK!_**

"GET."

**_CLACK!_**

"OFF."

**_CLACK!_**

"OF."

**_CLACK!_**

"HER!"

With every triumphant bang of discharged fury, Bonnie kept his heinous toothy grin with each wrack that shook his body and gradually drained him of life.

He never took his eyes off of Foxy as each piece of lead tore into his back.

"Looks like I'm the hunter now..."

**_CLACK!_**

**_CLACK!_**

"-FREAK."

There was a flash of electrically charged matter, shrapnel flew and steam burst in brilliant plumes of black and gray from the rabbit's head. His cranium vanished in a great burst of junk as the bullet tore through the back of his metal skull.

Bonnie's body whined mechanically and twitched, the last round blew away the rest of his face and upper jaw, and Foxy saw life finally leave her arch rival when the two illumination bulbs in the interior of his ragged, circuit-laden head blinked from red, to black.

There was more panicked screaming of servos, things clanked and rattled about, his still present, lower row of teeth chattered, red liquid spurted and flowed.

Bonnie fell off of her to the side in a garble of static from his ruined vocal devices.

The scrap clanked and clacked onto the pavement, twitched, then grew still. In the deathly silence of the night, Foxy heard her former enemy hiss out a breath that hauntingly was toned to his grinding, deep voice.

When Phillip fell on his knees, he tossed the .357 away with a loosening of his fingers to his immediate right. The gun skittered a few inches away, lay still, and most importantly, empty.

With heavy breath the human clenched his wounded gut, cringed, and heard the faintest of chuckles from the street ahead.

"F-Fox'...? Foxy?"

"He looks so... HARMLESS... When he's... He's dead..."

"FOXY!"

Phillip coughed in agony as he scrambled over himself to reach the sidewalk, his sneakers cobbled on the road, his torn clothes made shifting sounds of disrupted linen. Slowly, he hobbled and crawled over to his fallen friend.

Phillip, still on one leg, looked down at her with brazen neutrality, his expression went blank, the darkness around him didn't frighten him as much as it had when the final fight had started, in fact, Phillip didn't care about his surroundings.

His hands held in the air, he trembled when the animatronic before him smiled weakly and garbled a mess of loose bolts from inside her mouth. She spat them out to dance and glitter across the road in front of her.

As Foxy leant back down with a shivering rustle of metal, she grinned sadly.

"-Y-You made it, Phillip..."

"Foxy I'm getting us out of here. NOW,"

The human wobbled to a half stand and angled in the direction of the nearby highway.

"-I-I'm getting help, you hear? I'm-"

"Phillip... Just... Sit down already would you..."

"Foxy we need to get help-"

"D-Do you honestly think they'll... They'll help a broken m-machine on the side... Of the road?"

Phillip's jaw quivered in horrendous realization, he knelt to her, his hands clasped over her shoulders and squeezed tightly.

"No... No no... I'll make them! I'll make them help you!"

"Phillip... Please..." She muttered with her eyes shut. "-Find a hospital before the blood loss kills you..."

"I DON'T CARE IF IT KILLS ME!" He barked suddenly, regretting the enhanced volume, and doubling over his worse-off friend with a light sob. "-We've gone to hell, and back to get you out of this... This damn mess..."

"And... I'll be out of it... Very... Very soon, Phil..."

"B-But! N-no! No I'm gonna-!"

"Phillip... Fredd's gone, Bon's gone... Chica's gone... All the evil is gone... I'm happy."

"You're happy DYING? I-I refuse to believe that! I just..." His face was stained heavily with moisture, he reclined and shook her a bit. "-I just can't..."

"Phillip... Please, l-look at me..."

The young man reached down to soothingly draw his fingers down each of her furred, rounded shoulders, he quivered, emotions twisted between rage and mourning.

Down there, in the darkened street, Foxy raised her head up to smile at him in the brightest she ever had since Mangle had finished her own fight earlier in the pizzeria. Phil felt his stomach perform loops, his heart was slowing down.

"You have m-made me, the happiest, I have ever been in my life. O-Okay?"

"...B-But... But Fox'..."

"Please just... Tell me it's okay, Phillip."

"...I..."

"Please...?"

"I... I don't..." He heaved, forced himself, finally. "-It's okay."

"..."

"Fox'?"

"..."

"Foxy...?"

"..."

"Oh... Oh my- I- N-No, NO!"

Phillip stood bolt upright.

Her eyes were dark, just like Mangle's had been, and she looked limp.

An entire week of the greatest, scariest, adventure in his life had boiled down to this moment of the night.

He had started the fight with a wise man, a crazy, a strong willed, himself, and the spiritual support.

Yet at the end, all of them, every single one, all the way from the old man, to Mangle, Freddy and his goons, Jensk... Were all gone.

For the last few seconds of the struggle, he had held onto the last subject of the quest.

But now Foxy wasn't there anymore.

And Phillip didn't feel like HE was there anymore, standing in the debris-strewn street near the urban developments closest to the pizzeria, he still heard the roaring of fire, crackling of soot, and now, the sirens of approaching emergency crews.

He heard the blaring horns of fire trucks, the screams of police cars in chase, and they were pulling up to the road he was on, AND, the parking lot.

Right as Phillip Linn took a last look at Foxy's motionless form, he saw the brightest pair of lights that had ever shined in his face, and he heard the screech of rubber burning on concrete.

Then he passed out.

-0-0-0-0-0-

**_I'm sorry... I'm doing the sad stuff again. :/_**

**_-All will be alleviated! I PROMISE!_**


	29. Chapter 29

**So, holy smokes, I felt I had to put in the start of a good ending after I made a bunch of peeps angry at me- O_o -Lolz**

**Here's the first before the end, its a little short, I wasn't intending on submitting it until a while later, but, I don't people to wait that long if the last death-scene kinda bugged you with continuing to read my story.**

**For all the people that have been reading the chapters I put out, I thank you very, very VERY much, you have been the best audience I have ever had when telling a story.**

**Many people have told me what they thought of certain parts, some pointed grammatical errors (Which I still make! :/) -And some gave me ideas, discussed plot twists and themes with me, and I even had the liberty to discuss their own stories with them. **

**This is my first really long story I have ever submitted that received the amount of attention it did, and for that, I really can't thank my readers enough.**

**So, have an awesome-sauce rest of your day, fellow Fanfictioners, I will finish this story on good terms, I promise, and then, I can continue to work on the NEXT story I have planned! WOO!**

**-Don**

Chapter 29.

Looking Back.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"You know... I've finally run out of things to say."_**

**_-I don't even think there's a Writ that has this on it. So I don't got a quote for ya' either._**

**COUNTY SHERIFF DEPARTMENT CASE-FILE 10007E.**

**FILE CONCLUDED. PENDING REVIEW FOR STORAGE.**

-**NAME OF ESTABLISHMENT AS FOLLOWS 'FREDDY FAZBEAR'S PIZZA & CATERING.'-**

**-ESTABLISHMENT MARKED AS DESTROYED. COMPLETELY.-**

**-CAUSE. INTERNAL IGNITION, FIRE BY ELECTRICAL MISHAP. NO FOUL PLAY.-**

**-EMPLOYEE LIST AS FOLLOWS-**

**EMPLOYER/OWNER- MATTHEW /****_REDACTED_****/ /****_REDACTED_****/ (PRESENT AT TIME. FATALLY INJURED. DECEASED.)**

**SECURITY WORKER- PHILLIP LINN. AGE 23. (PRESENT AT TIME. SUFFERED INJURIES. NOT SUSPECT.)**

**JANITOR/SANITATION- ZACHARY KLINSEV. AGE 54. (NOT PRESENT AT TIME.)**

**JANITOR/SANITATION- STEVEN ALHAWK. AGE 45. (PRESENT AT TIME. FATALLY INJURED. DECEASED.)**

**-SUSPECTS OR CONSIDERATIONS ARE AS FOLLOWS- NONE. INVESTIGATION PROVES FOUL PLAY NOT OPTIONAL.**

**-COURSE OF ACTION FOR PROPERTY- IMMEDIATE REMOVAL OF DEBRIS VIA CONSTRUCTION TOWN CREW. LOT TO BE RAZED. PLANNED PROJECT OF NATURE PRESERVE. PENDING FUNDING.**

**-AFFILIATES ALIVE- NONE.**

**REPAIRS COVERED BY TOWN/COUNTY.**

**REPORT NOTES CONCLUDE ACCIDENTAL DESTRUCTION OF BUILDING INQUERY.**

**-BODIES CONCLUDED AT FAULT- NONE.**

**-CASE PRIORITY- LOW. **

**PROBABILITY OF CONTINUED INVESTUGATION. NONE.**

**-COUNTER SHERIFF DEPARTMENT- DETECTIVE HILTHROP BANKS. DEPUTY MICHELL WHITMAN.**

**CLOSE FILE**

**SEE LOCAL SORTING OFFICER FOR SPECIFIC DETAILS. USAGE OF**

**COUNTY DATA FOR INFRINGEMENT/UNLAWFUL ACTIVITY IS**

**PROHIBITED.**

"Mr. Linn? Mr. Linn can you hear me?"

_I really don't WANT to hear you right now... I'm tired. Shut up and let me sleep..._

"Mr. Linn, you're going to be okay, just take slow breaths."

_I'll take slow breaths when I'm relaxed, and right now, your disturbing my relax-edness. SHUT UP._

"Maybe we should wait for him to respond later tonight?"

"No no, look, his heart monitor,"

"-Fancy that. Mr. Linn, you're in the Emergency Room, can you hear me?"

_The ER? Why the frag am I in the..._

"-ER?!" Phillip bolted upright when he heard that word.

Immediately, a brown-haired man in a white overcoat with a blue under dressing reclined back in surprise, and a white sheet flurried off of Phil's shoulders, the feeling of a chill graced the parts of his body that had been tucked in.

Softness cushioned underneath him, there was a set of grayed handrails on each side of the structure he lay on, and a beeping sound grew from fast and panicked, to relaxed and slow as he considered his surroundings.

Phillip sucked in his breath, and flinched from regret after his gut flared from response.

"-O-Ow! Ow... W-Where... Who...?"

"Mr. Linn, I'm Doctor Pvowsky, you are at the South Warden Medical, you almost died from a fire that broke out at your workplace."

"F-Fire...?"

"Yes indeed, sir. You sustained multiple third-degree burns and suffered from smoke-inhalation, you did good to get out of the building when you did."

"B-Burns? S-Smoke inhal-Look, dude, I don't... I don't understand..."

"You got hit pretty hard, Mr. Linn, a peculiar combo, I don't expect you to remember everything."

"W-Where did I... G-Get hit?"

"In the abdominal region, AND the head. It was probably debris from that age-old ceiling," Doctor Pvowsky mused, waving over an orderly, the other person he had been talking too beforehand.

Now having his vision and mind clear, Phillip now realized he was in a cot, a medical cot.

There was a white, bland room with only a storage closet, a small bathroom, and a ceiling-corner mounted television set playing a crappy soap-opera from one of the PBS channels or something.

The sound of distant telephones and intercom addressed was faint in the background, and Doctor Pvowsky smiled at him as he took a small cup of pain pills from the young lady who brought them in. He handed the plastic cup to Phillip.

"Pain pills, the hits you suffered? You got some really bad bruising, but the good news, is that you haven't broken ANYTHING, not a single bone. You're very lucky, Mr. Linn."

"I-I... Thank you."

He took the pills and swallowed them dry.

He didn't even know what to say.

The whole last week seemed unreal.

Hell, by this point, it might have just been a some sort of hallucination of being assaulted by flame-born smog.

It all was distant too him.

So, he asked three questions.

"-How long was I out?"

"Two days, and five hours."

"Did you find anyone else?"

"... Ahem," Doctor Pvowsky lost his smile. "-W-Well, Mr. Linn... You were familiar with...-You were EMPLOYED, by a Matthew-?"

"I already know-" Phillip cut him off. "-I... I saw him."

"Mr. Linn you have my deepest condolences. I... I won't say I understand any grief you feel, but, I see a lot of things in my profession. If you need anything, just, ask, okay?"

Not commenting on it, Phillip handed the doctor the cup back, and asked his final query.

"-Who found me? The firemen?"

"No, actually," Pvowsky narrowed his eyes. "-See here's where it's peculiar, two men in a red car, BROUGHT you to the ambulance in the parking lot of the establishment, said they found you in the back office."

"Did they have names?"

"Yes-Uhm," Pvowsky took up a small clipboard from the foot of the cot he been leant by, and read with a raised nose. "-A Mister 'Frank Jensk' and a Mister 'Matt Franks', now if I do say so myself, those names seem awfully sketchy, aye?"

Phillip Linn never got the humor from the good Doctor, but instead, he just chuckled.

"Of COURSE it was them..." He snickered.

-0-0-0-0-0-

Later on in the hospital, Phillip was visited by a deputy of the local Sheriff Department, introduced as Mr. Michell, who claimed he knew Matthew personally.

"I just can't believe he's gone," He commented for a third time. "-A fire. Boy, I never would have guessed."

"He was a... Very brave man, Mr. Michell."

"He was. He was... Listen, they said it was a short-fuse in a wire in the basement, some kind of, electric fire,"

"Uh-huh."

"You didn't see anything else? Unusual?"

Oh, the amount of answers Phillip could have given for THAT question.

He gritted his teeth in a cheap grin.

"No sir."

"Awright, well, Mr. Linn, it was a pleasure speakin' with ya'... Wish it was under better circumstances, eh?"

"Oh yes, very! HEY-Uhm, Deputy Michell?"

"Yessir?"

"You know a BPD officer named Jensk?"

"If I knew Matt', I knew Jensk, yessir I did... That poor fella' died a few years back. You would've liked him."

"Yeah well, he's the one who brought me here-WAIT, what?"

"Jensk had a rough final few. Drunk himself into one of the worst fender-benders seen here, he did... HE, was a brave man. Broken, but brave."

"Jensk... Was..."

Michell left a few minutes later solemnly, and Phillip started to laugh hysterically in his bed, to the point where the nurse asked him if he felt dizzy.

She rushed in the room with a call-key already at hand, and poor Mr. Linn just waved her off.

"-N-No! It's all good, ma'am! Deputy Michell just told the FUNNIEST-JOKE-EVER! HA! AHA!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

Phillip was released from the hospital a day later.

He was given a new set of cheap pants and a shirt for the ride home in a taxi, and as one of the nurses handed him the clothes, she winked at him and asked if he were single.

Phillip stood there like a stone idol, shook his head, and promptly responded with a-

"No ma'am."

-Before he ran to a nearby bathroom, and vomited in the toilet.

Then he wiped his mouth, bought an iced tea at the hospital cafe, and boarded the yellow car outside with the boring, monotone-voiced driver to head to his house.

Halfway there, he asked, on the promise of extra pay for the route, that they drive by the site of the fire he had 'Almost Died in'.

The cabby said it was on the house, pulled into the lot, and let Phillip stare at the fenced-off pile of blackened rubble that had been the pizzeria, the source, of all the horror, and adventure. Phil stared through the rear passenger window, saw no sign of the wrecked mutant-van, or any of the bodies of his friends, or enemies.

He said he'd seen enough, and the cabby drove him home.

-0-0-0-0-0-

His lawn looked bleak.

More bleak than it ever had in the span of week with demons stalking it.

In fact, his entire house and the property surrounding it, looked saddened. Boring. Drab.

The cab driver did a U-turn and rolled back the way he had come into the development, and left Phillip to stand before his make-shiftly re-propped mailbox, stuffed with three days of mail, and his empty, still locked and dark home.

The garage, and all the doors were still closed, and Phillip walked up to his front door, sighed, and put the key into it.

With a twisted unlocking, the entry creaked open to reveal his lobby, still smelling of the cleaner he had used to tidy up when the three of them had come back from their first major fight. For a long time, he stood on his porch, just looking inside his home.

Then, without a word, he strode in, and slammed the door shut.

For a few hours he paced the different rooms, he made some food, ate it, got some juice, drank it, had the use the bathroom, and used it.

He got tired, took an hour nap, and woke up in the middle of the afternoon.

So again, downstairs he went, he ate more food, went to get a drink, and found himself holding back tears when he pulled out a box of unmade green tea.

He opened his computer, browsed some funny videos that did not make him laugh, he checked his bills on his banking account, he browsed jobs, tried to write a story and deleted all of it when he saw the final, sad tale he had written off of his current mood.

So this was what he had after that week.

He couldn't even go back to the life he had been living before being exposed to all of that.

And it made him angry.

So he tried talking to Jensk, to Matthew, to the spirits that helped him, and chastised himself for ranting at the air.

In his spurn, he broke a mug on the counter, stared at the mess, and tiredly swept it up into the trash.

He felt defeated, angry, mourning, and lost.

He stomped into the only section of his house he had not gone into yet since his return.

The garage.

And, expecting it to be empty, proved a startled jump when he saw the wreck that was his blue Ford sitting dead-center the aisle, missing door, chewed bumper and all.

He supposed he had some supernatural crap too thank for THAT recovery too.

Phillip wasted his time working on the car then.

He kinked out dents in the bumper as best he could, he went on the internet to find a workshop to sell him a new model door and new tires, he replaced the leather on the half-eaten rear seat, and he cleaned some of the water damage off the rear flooring.

And then he sat back, slinging a rag over his shoulder, and stared aimlessly at the Ford's hood.

-Because, really, at the end of this whole thing, what the hell was he DOING?

Trying to just live after having this new life being thrust onto, and then snatched away from him?

It was impossible to do.

He slumped for a very long time in the driver-seat of the car, arms folded over the wheel, forehead buried in them.

He hadn't felt this horrible since his father had passed away.

And that was saying a lot.

"-I don't know what to do with myself..." He said aloud. "-It's like I died, even though I lived."

And right as he said that, a strange inkling came over him.

Because, all this time, he had been sulking in and around the car, he'd been repairing and cleaning it, fixing parts and making new ones, and he'd daydreamed in every direction the garage had too offer.

He'd sulked at the worktable.

At the car.

IN the car.

In all four corners.

At the shelves.

At one point, in the larger unit, IN the shelves for the sheer sake of it.

But after all those options came and went, he found the source of things to stare at dwindling.

Then, he saw the tarps over the front of his garage.

Tarps, that had not BEEN there, ever.

Raising a brow, Phillip climbed out of his car and stepped over to a single drapery of blue linen thrown over the pile of crates and bins that had been stacked at the rear of the garage, facing his car's hood when he pulled in.

Feeling a sense of intrigue for the first time today, Phillip poked the drapery with his pointy finger, felt something solid, and furrowed the very facial expression he held.

"What in the living-AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

He pulled the cloth away, and screamed like a little girl who had just found out her brother had beheaded all her favorite dolls with a kitchen knife.

Splayed over the front of his car, Phillip uncurled from the messy, blue-painted vehicle to watch, slack-jawed, two heaps of bundled metal laid calmly atop a neatly stacked bed of upside-down plastic crates.

Phillip expected this to be a nightmare, too good.

But when nothing happened for a good twenty minutes, and he remembered that otherworldly powers had apparently been trying to make amends to him for finally stopping the evil, the largest grin he had ever felt, went from ear to ear.

Laying in a shell-like state, were two things he thought were now fantasy.

Yet when he scrambled over, and held an arm, than a pipe, he knew they were real, and that they were waiting for HIS recovery of them, as his car had in the garage too.

Phillip laughed like the happiest clown in the world's most prestigious circus tent.

He grabbed his toolbox, tore apart his shelves to find electrical equipment, and went to work on the first hollow shell lain about the crates in an octopus-like sprawl. He tinkered with wires in the central zenith, retied and re-knitted circuits, stuck his tongue out when he found some organic-like structuring.

In a strange combination of paramedic, surgeon, mechanic, and, well, PLUMBER, Phillip Linn worked for hours.

Things clanged, snapped, shocked, he cursed and whooped in victory when something was completed.

Then, out of nowhere, half-way through the revitalization of a stomach-like bulge in the center of a metallic rib section, Phil got zapped by a tiny bout of electricity.

"WOO!" He cried. "-YeeeOOOUUCCCHhhhh..."

He sucked his finger, grabbed a pair of wire cutters, and strung together two trails of coppery metal.

To his amazement, a skin-like covering began to formulate on it, like solidifying air, almost, as he sealed the metal encasing with a few screws and bolts.

There was a tiny spark that kicked off, and the shell twitched.

His heart stopped when he stared into a great abyss of black by the shell's head, IN its head, and he was met with small hue of one color he had learned to love, apparently.

Violet.

Neon-Violet.

The shell hacked, and dust came out of its mouth, limbs flung and swept about the garage, one clearly drew across Phillip's face, and his excitement was cut short in the strongest slap he had ever felt.

**_WHACK!_**

"-AH! GOD-DAMN!"

Stumbling back, he held the red mark on his cheek.

"-THAT frigging hurt..."

"-OOO! Is that greeny-flavor?!"

Phil whipped his vision upwards right as a pair of hands, and one foot, lashed out over his right shoulder to the work-table behind him, and scooped up a mug of tea he had been drinking half-way through the operation.

The cup was brought in a sail back to the source over his head, he ducked, stood bolt upright, and smiled as a small belch signaled the end of his heated beverage.

"Me think it stale..." She said disappointedly. "But me still can't use applied sciences."

"A-Applied sciences... Huh?"

"Yeah, strange ghosty man! Dr. Phil said me can't use them!"

"Oh my God... I'm not a 'Strange Ghosty Man'... D-Do you remember? Do you know me?"

"Me think you... Familiar."

"I-I'm-"

"WAIT!"

"Huh?"

"Don't tell me,"

"-Oh for the love of-"

"You Pete!"

"...No..."

"Franky!"

"No, listen-"

"THOMAS!"

"-Holy crud, just let me-!"

"ME KNOW, ME KNOW! You Arnold Schwartz-a-tiger!"

"IT'S PHILLIP! YOU WIERDY!"

Right after Phillip screamed that, the other voice went silent.

There was a pause that actually began to make Phil grind his jaws harder and harder, his entire body shivering at the sight of something, someone, he thought he had lost for good.

When it seemed that same silence would prevail, Phillip Linn was overcome with a flailing, non-humanoid presence that balled over his face and chest, and obscured his vision in shadows.

"PHILLY-KIIIIINNNNSSS!"

She cried out that stupid name in the loudest she had ever cried it, and within a second, tens of tentacle-like pipe limbs were wrapping in a wad over his head and torso, and a furry mass was driving into his face.

Phillip sputtered until the head receded, and the pipes uncoiled a bit.

He found himself staring into the one good-eye of his returned companion.

Mangle smiled brightly with her entire set of teeth, flexing her pipes on him as if in fear she would be taken away again.

"PHILLY!" She chirped, and his own grin was again washed away when she drew her tongue from his chin, all the way up to his forehead in a disturbingly sloppy lick.

"PWH!-PEW! AGH!-Pfft!-Pft! Aw-man! That's just nasty!"

"BUT-BUT-B-But... Me miss you Philly-Kins." Mangle said. "-It really dark... And lots of wierd ghosty-guys tell me I go home soon..."

"Oh, you little freakwad," Phillip laughed. "-I missed you too. I missed you a whole FRAGGING-lot."

"Me back with Emperor Philly-kins! Me FEEL HAPPY!"

"So do I, I really do."

"-Philly?"

"Yes, wierdy?"

"Where Fooxxxyyyy?"

They both blinked, Mangle craning her head back to look at the other shell still piled on the crates, and Phillip angling to the right to stare similarly.

Like he had found Mangle, Foxy lay there in a darkened, non-active state, arms folded across her chest, legs straight out.

However, what drew Phil's attention more suddenly, was the standing sight, that there was ANOTHER piece next to Foxy's deactivated form. Where her paw and hook crossed over each other, lay on a smaller tear of linen over a crate's top, a duplicate, of her finer limb.

In other words, there was another paw, and there was a perfect set of screws, bolts and washers, even a new pair of wire-cutters, opened, with small, black letters reading- THE LAW- being written in marker on the underside of its left handle.

Phillip stepped closer with Mangle still riding on his top front, leant down to examine the new, un-attached paw.

That same excitement he had when fixing Mangle, jubilantly filled his system for a second time.

"Oh don't worry," He smiled, nodding to his still present piles of tools. "-She's coming. Grab a wrench."

-0-0-0-0-0-


	30. Chapter 30

Chapter 30.

When it all Met the Furnace.

-0-0-0-0-0-

******_"Go outside and play!"_**

**_-Every Old Playstation 2 videogame at the ending of credits._**

She had only been gone two or three days, a handful of time, compared to those less fortunate, of being deceased, or shut down- By the end of a maze-like mystery that, only recently, had been ended.

In only ten or eleven days, give or take, Phillip had become embroiled in something, an occult undertone that had plagued humanity for longer than any of the current members involved in its existence, could say or prove.

Freddy and his minions, living, techno-organic monsters that fed off of the pain and terror they caused unsuspecting prey, had been ended, killed, by not the unspoken number of brave souls that had stood up to them, or by the two 'Defunct' members of their kind, but by some smelly kid looking for a part-time job.

The irony that undid the bear and his cronies, was something of a storybook perfection, a laughable hoax that no mastermind demon lord would EVER be befallen for in any of the Dungeons and Dragons books that Phillip read.

Yet, to take into account just HOW Freddy was defeated, you would need to perceive the engagement, no matter how weak the blunt presentation was- In a serious inspection of the elements.

Think of it this way, if you took a Medieval fortress, a castle, complete with peasants and farmers, knights, the rabble of common infantrymen, archers, groundskeepers, a handful of nobles, government servants, and headed it all with a King, what would he be afraid of?

-Here's the situation, the King was unjust in his rule, farmers were stricken with poverty, and the common man was poor, diseased, and uneducated, while those close to the King and his family were rick, intelligent, and received the best food and medical care in the kingdom.

Now, an army from the rival kingdom has amassed outside that castle, and all this time, the King has defeated every other army his men have come across, he has held against innumerable sieges of the SAME castle he lives in, and he has stamped out all resistance from the rebellious, starving people.

What would the King find more a threat?

The unarmed peasants and lepers pleading angrily for help at the foot of his great palace?

Or the mob of armed, trained swordsmen showing up by the thousands with archer and catapult support?

Obviously, the latter seemed a tad more fearsome.

But just like Freddy, the King did not see the whole picture, and became confident in his God-like might over people less powerful than he.

Because when the castle finally fell, and the noble family was exterminated, and the surrounding lands were annexed, the King himself did not die by spear, or arrow, or sword, or a shot from a catapult or trebuchet.

No, the King was killed by the angry farmers who poisoned the mixture used to create his wine he sipped every afternoon.

Thus, with the King and his tactical brilliance dead, his lords, and his armies, may have been trained and elite in their class, but without the head, the snake's body became disoriented and was thrown into a spasm of disarray.

THAT, was the real reason for the victory.

Not the massed arms, or the massed soldiers surrounding those siege engines.

ANGRY FARMERS.

-Pitchforks raised by the common man, not giant deathrays of neighboring nations, or missile barrages from rival armies, or massive cannon columns from the enemy country, but internal strife, and the day when your average person says-

ENOUGH, is ENOUGH.

Truly, not enough villains feared this risk.

Phillip was one of the few people to tell you, they should, based off experience.

Though as of the last few cycles of time, that poetic sense of justice was not resonating with Phillip Linn.

In fact, only one element of his adventure was resonating with him.

BESIDES, his repairing of Mangle.

"Hand me that ratchet,"

"-But, Philly, me no have batch-kits!"

"NO-! Not-! Ugh, just... You see the shiny claw-thing right there?"

"OOooooOOooo... Me think it look tasty!"

"DON'T YOU DARE. Hand it over, please."

"-Okey-dokey, Emperor Philly-kins."

Phillip snatched up the ratchet and began to crank closed several of the bolts and washer-pairs that linked the metal understructure of Foxy's wrist.

Really, Phillip had repeated the same pattern of repair he had on her the first time, with the addition of her second attachment he had found, and sealing the nasty wounds on her gut and chest.

The last fight had broken some sorts of internal systems, and one thing Phillip had found, was that, in similarity to how her organic mesh repaired when the copper-supports were re-linked, Foxy's body could repair itself if the mesh properly SEALED it.

For the last night, Phillip had gone without rest, tying off copper-tears, and waiting for the mesh and fur to regenerate over the course of a few hours for each fix. He tightened the hinge-like structures that were wedged between the joints of her limbs, sealed more mesh covering them, he faltered at the covering medical tape on her torso, avoided it, and worked on her abdomen.

Briefly, he had taken a break, wiping his forehead with a rag, and tossing his shirt away in the corner of the garage by the door into his home, where Mangle had promptly slipped it over her ears, and was wearing it like a hood.

"What are you doing THAT for?" He asked tiredly with a grin.

"Me a hoodlum, Philly!" Mangle cheered, flicking her ears under the shirt and hopping excitedly on the floor next to the driver-side left wheel of the car.

"HA! Aha!-Woo! W-Where'd you hear THAT? Yo, t-that's funny!"

"Me dunno. Think it sound funny!"

"Well, it IS funny, but just because you have a shirt on your head, doesn't mean the word... 'HOODLUM'."

"OooOoo! Like when womenz say no, womenz mean yes?!"

When Mangle asked that, Phillip's smile was shot off his face, and he scratched the back of his neck with a sudden urge to end his break, and resume fixing Foxy.

"-Uhm. Yeah. Very similar saying..."

"Or when first hear where babiez come from!"

"You don't know the answer to that one do you?"

"Or when-!" She stopped, blinked her one good eye, and cocked her head to the left a little under Phillip's shirt. "-Me not know answer to babiez, Philly."

"Maybe when you're older. Pfft."

"TELL ME ABOUT THE BIRDZ AND THE BEEZ, PHILLY-KIIIINNNSSS!"

"Oh my God! NO! I like my sanity, thank you!"

"But WHHHHHyyyyyyyyYYYYYYyyyyy...?"

"-B-Because- I-It's nasty to talk about!"

"Me think boogers nasty to talk about."

"Good, than think of babies like boogers..."

"But babiez small and soft and loud! And cuddly!"

"Pfft. Like you?"

"..."

"What? I hit a nerve?"

"YOU GENIOUS PHILLY!"

"Not really- MMF!"

Again, just like when she had first been reactivated, Mangle obscured his head with another wad of flailing pipes, leaping up, and leaving his shirt to flutter down to the floor without a user.

"CUDDLEZ!"

"GET OFF ME, YOU WIERDO! C'MON!"

-0-0-0-0-0-

It had actually been more difficult than he had originally thought it would be.

Once or twice now, maybe a few more times, he wasn't keeping track, Foxy had jolted in her state of disrepair, like someone would after receiving the smallest zap from shock therapy in medical history. With a hollow clank of metals she'd jerk upwards, and then go still again.

The first time it happened, Phillip had finished sealing off a gash on her belly, and he'd even been daring, reaching inside the wound itself, and managed to knit back together a deeper section of copper bases for some other organic mesh internal structuring.

The extra effort obviously did something, because when he sealed the gash after said work, the animatronic experienced aforementioned jolt.

**_CLACK_**

-Came from the crates she was atop, and Phillip screeched loud enough for Mangle to fall out of the top shelf on the nearest shelving unit she had been napping atop.

"WHAAA!" The flailing mess of metal ended her brief tumble onto the side of Phillip's car, making yet another dent on the hood with a hollow **_THUMM_**, before rolling off onto the floor.

Phillip didn't even notice the continued destruction of his once prized automobile, he was too busy hurrying back over to his makeshift operating table-(Since he'd leapt a foot away from it from startled fright)- And giving the fox's arm a good shake.

It was her right arm, the one he had fixed with the new paw, and he thought that might get a better chance of reaction from her.

However, Foxy was still dark and stone cold, Phil found himself growing grim just looking at her.

"Fox'? Come on, Foxy," He tried. "Anything? Anything at all?"

"Foooxxxxxyyyyyyy!" Mangle popped up from her splay on the floor, and clambered atop his car's roof excitedly.

Turning over his shoulder, Phillip grimaced at the undoing of his feeble attempts to make his beaten-up car look presentable, looked back at Foxy, and sighed with a slumping of his shoulders.

What the heck else could he do to wake her up?

He woke Mangle up, so why was Foxy proving more and more challenging?

He thought the reflexes, the jolts she made, had been a sign of progress in his effort to repair her. As of now though, Phillip wasn't sure if any results had been feasible. Had he fixed ANYTHING?

"What the shit..." The cursed, turning away to glare at Mangle in thought.

As he stared he picked the stubble on his chin with his curling left fingers, and the whackjob fiddled with two of her pipes with an unreadable expression.

Obviously, Mangle had been overjoyed to be returned to the land of the living, but now without Foxy, she still felt happy that Phillip was here- Yet Foxy had been a mentor of sorts throughout the years, her OTHER 'Bestest' friend.

Now that same mentor, the only other being she'd been able to talk too beside Phil, was not waking up.

"M-Maybe Foxy broken bad, Philly...?"

"N-No, I'll get her up. I'll do it."

"But we try for hours."

"I know, I'll-WE'LL, figure it out..."

"Me trust you, Philly-kins."

"Thank you, weirdy," He snickered in his palm. "-I just don't know what else could be broken..."

Traveling back to the dormant animatronic, Philip pointed at her body, her arms, her head.

"-I-I mean... We've sealed all the tears in the mesh, I fixed whatever internal damage was exposed, the rest should be regenerating, and I patched her arms and legs up! So, what the hell? Where's Foxy?"

"Me have itchies!" Mangle whined. "-Philly-kins! Can you scratch back?"

The vulpine twisted her rib section around and angled over her pipes with an anxious nod of her chin.

"-Where'd that come from?" Phillip quizzed, stepping over to the side of his car. "Don't tell me you caught fleas..."

"Me have no peas, Philly-kins! Me like teas!"

"Oh yes... I KNOW that one..."

Idly, he reached up and dragged his fingers in the rear groove of her only section of animatronic torso left, and Mangle immediately draped her tongue out.

Shaking his head at her usual antics, Phil kept thinking over and over again at how he would get Foxy up, when, whilst he humored Mangle's awkward irritation for a metal body, he concentrated on the several linked sections of rounded steel, that made her spinal section.

Over the last week, Phil had never paid attention to the details on Mangle's body, or the bush of pipes that swung around it all the time like a bad smell. But seeing the small spinal construct, and how it was missing all the links from half her ribs-down, he was alerted to a new idea.

What if... THAT, was what was broken on Foxy?

"Her back..." He mumbled, rubbing his fingers into the side of the metal, wire-wrapped vertebrae to emit a relieved chatter from Mangle, she listed to the left, and he angled his head to view her back more. "-Her back... T-That must be it. That's it! Mangle! You're brilliant!"

"-No, me have itchiez!"

"No-!-I mean, y-yes, you do, b-but this is what-! THIS, the spine, that's what must be broken! I can't think of anything else!"

Phillip hurried back to the crates with which Foxy still lay atop, and the Mangle grumbled at his stoppage of 'Itch-relief'.

"Help me turn her over! Hurry!"

"Me think tea fix problem!"

"Yeah, well I think you should hurry the frag up! C'mon! Under her arms!"

Mangle clambered over the floor, and snagged her pipes underneath Foxy's left flank, while Phillip took hold of her right, and they both slowly turned the animatronic face-down on the crates.

Phillip took caution to reach up and angle her face to the side, as not to leave it plastered into the plastic.

"Okay, here we go-Why the heck didn't I think of this?!" He jabbed a finger at a large gash in her center-back, as if Mangle would somehow understand. "See that! Mangle, hand me the flashlight."

"What's a hash-sight, Philly?"

"Ugh, t-the, what'd you call it? The 'Beam of Doomz'- That thing!"

"Oh! Beam of Doomz, why not say so, Philly?"

"Just... Please give it too me."

"Okey-dokey!"

Mangle's extra pipes flicked by the worktable a few feet away, and came back with a small, black-colored, portable flashlight, which Phillip took from two feet clasping it between their toes, flicked on the light, and shoved the beam of illumination at the gash on Foxy's back.

Inside, he could see the reflective sheen of the wire-wrapped vertebrae lining all the way up the rear of her body, just like a human's.

At the center of the gash, it was clearly evident that two of the bulges were disconnected, and a thin trail of copper wires bridged the separation between them raggedly.

He'd have to be careful with this.

If he tugged something, or broke something, he could actually make the damage worse.

"I guess I really am a- 'Doctor' Phil..." Phillip laughed.

"Surgery time!" Mangle cheered, coming back with a device that made Phillip nearly soil himself.

Mangle held the buzzsaw he kept in the back storage unit, and, thankfully, had done so when the thing was unplugged.

"N-No! NO NO! Gimme that!"

Phillip reached up and snatched the flailing piece of equipment from two of her tentacles, held it by his hip, and frowned at her.

The animatronic smiled innocently down on the floor.

"Leave the-SURGERY, to me, please."

"Okey-dokey!"

"Just hand me things I ask for."

"Mmkay!"

"Can you do that? And NOTHING else?"

"Me keep concentration in head like steel cap!"

"-TRAP. The expression's TRAP, weirdy."

"Me have no sap, Philly, me can check tree though!"

"Nevermind."

-0-0-0-0-0-

The last time Foxy was happy, was a very very VERY, LONG time ago.

As a matter of fact, Foxy didn't recall it.

Because she really didn't recall anything BEFORE the other animatronics.

She didn't know if there was any real life before them. She didn't know what they were before their current incarnation. She didn't know is she even existed before them.

Her memory, she felt, had been purposefully skewed on the subject to prevent her from doing something, or believing something rather. What that something was, though, she again did not recall, or know.

Like reiterated in the fashion of a broken record, there might not have ever BEEN a something.

Maybe that something was her, herself.

Maybe it was Mangle... That'd be a horrible laugh.

Maybe it was Phillip.

-And that Phillip boy-oh-boy...

That last time she'd been happy? The one she didn't recall?

-The only happiness she could recall was over the last week. And that was because of Phillip, some stupid little human, who waltzed in on a colossal power-broker between good and evil, and thought he could make minimum wage of it.

Some stupid little human, that had been the first too talk to her on a personal level, moreso than Matt or Jensk could have ever hoped too of. Some stupid little human, that had been the first to make her laugh.

All of these really wonderful things, from a hairless ape.

He didn't even have any resemblance to her, he was a different species, pink, fleshy, weak, he had a wad of fur on the top of his head and nowhere else-(That she knew of)- He wasn't super strong, he was bright, he wasn't athletic, or fast, or agile, and he had no real FIGHT capabilities on him, the one thing that had judged who dominated who in her life.

Thus, instead of repelling her, Foxy was swoon by the peaceful, happy lifestyle he seemed to live compared to her.

She had envisioned so many things in her life, and the crazy part was, her life had been utter shit before she came into contact with the guard for hire.

All of the things she had dreamt up in her little Cove, now, a pile of ashes like the rest of the accursed building, all of the ones that had to do with a significant other, had BLOOMED off of Phillip, she saw pleasantries not possible without him, in her life.

So, Foxy was undeniably attracted to him.

Nearly at first sight. And it had been a whole week, and now, she was effectively smitten with him.

But she was also effectively dead.

So, you know, being smitten with some dude and then DYING on him, not only blew-chunks for the girl in question, but the dude himself probably was not prancing through the tulips either.

In the darkness that she found after she had been shut down, Foxy felt horrible, she felt robbed of the same happiness she had never gotten more than a week to experience, and she felt cheated. She felt enraged.

But that rage gave way to grief and mourning, than depression.

So she sat in the void, silently.

Waiting for nothing.

She couldn't really think, or feel, see or smell or taste or HEAR. She was just there, for ages it appeared, she was just THERE.

When, out of the blue-Or rather out of the BLACK, came a wonderful sensation.

And then another wonderful sensation.

And another.

And ANOTHER.

Her physical form came to her, and it grew alive with light, senses, refreshed vigor.

Foxy started to reactivate.

"-You hear that?"

"Me still here, Philly."

"No! Not that kind of-! Ugh, did you hear that gasping sound? The breath?"

"...Me has indigestion."

"N-No it's-! Wait, oh my... Oh my God, do you REALLY?"

"Me smell worse than skunkies on pot bummer day!"

"HOT SUMMER DAY! GOOD LORD! YOU STINK THE JOINT OUT AND CAN'T EVEN GET THE PHRASE RIGHT! AGH!"

"Philly-kins sound like octopus guy from spongy cartoon!"

"-HOW DO YOU EVEN KNOW ABOUT THAT?!"

"Me watch T.V!"

"Can you BLAME me for sounding like Squidward?! I can't breathe!"

"Oopseez."

**_CLUNK_**

"I swear on my HOOK, you corroded-garden-hose! I'll PLUG that dispulsion system if you don't control it!"

Phillip froze in the back of the garage, hands still clenched over his nose, when he heard her voice again.

Mangle was stopped mid-clamber over Phil's car back to the floor.

Both eyes spun to the crates, and the being on top of them.

Like nothing even happened, their eyes met the same sight they'd been graced with for a full week, and in the case of Mangle, for far longer.

Foxy snarled at the two of them, sitting upright on the crates' tops, reached up for her eye-patch, remembered she'd still taken it off, blinked, and jabbed her hook at Mangle.

"What is it with you, you rabid-licorice-stick?!"

Foxy gawked, and looked at her wrist, and where her hook was SUPPOSED to be...

"W-WHERE THE SHIT'S MY HOOK?!"

"FOXXXXXYYYYYYYY!"

"WHO SWITCHED MY ARMS OR SOMETHING-OOF!"

**_CLUNK_**

Foxy vanished in a flurry of white as Mangle plastered her onto the top of the crates again with a wrapping of all her pipes.

The animatronic lay there in a stupor as her friend squeezed her tightly, and burned holes in the ceiling of the garage. Foxy opened her mouth to speak, shut it, and slowly brought the one arm, her right arm, out of Mangle's coils to view it.

She held it aloft, and turned the wrist and paw to and fro, flexing the fingers just as easily, though a bit more stiffly, as she would her paw, her ORIGINAL paw.

She was speechless, and she struggled to edge vision over the wad of metal on her body to view the same stupid little human she had been thinking about in the void.

Phillip slowly walked up to the crates, before her draped legs over their sides, and smiled at her in amazement.

Foxy blinked.

"-This... Is real, isn't it?"

"A-As real as it'll get, Fox'," Phil stuttered. "H-How do you feel? I... I fixed you! I got ya' back! Are you... Okay?"

Foxy stared at him silently, feeling Mangle uncoil herself, and sit on her belly in a collected bunch, her head cocking to the side to frown at her.

"Foooxxxyyyy...?" She muttered, giving the vulpine a shake with some coils still wrapped around her. "-Don't remember me and Philly-kins?"

"O-Of course she remembers us! Why-Why would you think THAT?" Phillip snapped. "C'mon, Fox'... It's us! We won! We stopped the bear..."

"The... Bear...?"

"Yeah! You know? The Demonic-Douchebag? The Build-A-Bear Reject? Killer Care-Bear? Yes?"

"Phillip...?"

"-Y-Yes I'M, Phillip, remember? I... Foxy, you remember all this, right? You're... You're okay? Right?"

"...Okay...?"

"Y-Yeah... I..."

He stepped back at the same time Mangle uncoiled herself fully, and the two gawked at the confused animatronic still lay atop the crates, her eyes wide, brows furrowed.

Mangle looked distraught, and Phillip looked defeated.

He'd brought her back, but... He didn't want to bring her back like THIS.

Amnesia? Short-term? Had Foxy been like... Dazed?

How did he fix THIS?

"...Okay... Huh..." Foxy trailed with a tiny murr.

"I guess... Y-You're NOT okay then... God-" Phillip swung around with a frustrated pump of his fist. "-DAMN IT!"

"P-Philly-kins... We fix her!"

"HOW? Huh? I just- I just brought her back and she remembers NOTHING!"

"B-But, she still Foxy!"

"I-I know... But... I..."

Foxy interrupted them with a small grin, reaching up to clench Mangle with both of her paws, she slowly lifted the panicking whackjob off of her, and set her down on the crate next to her as she sat up.

Mangle looked like she was about to go into hysterics, and Phillip was starting to become upset.

"Well I... DO, remember something," Foxy stood to her full height, took a step, wobbly-like, forwards, and supported herself by reaching out, and cupping the human's shoulders. "-Something important, I think."

"...What's that, huh?" Phillip mumbled.

"I remembered that I wanted too kiss you harder than I ever had, if I got out of that fight alive."

"...Yeah well... I guess that's all water under-the bridge now-WAIT, whatdidyoujustsay?!"

"Cough up the payment, human." She grinned.

"Y-You're... So you-?"

"I'm WAITING, Philly-kins."

"HA! Oh! You are funny!"

"I had to put on SOME kind of act-MM!"

Foxy wasn't the one shoving Phil's head forwards this time, and Mangle was already hopping up and down in excitement once the worst had been warded off as a fake.

So there, in the garage, was where Phillip, for the first time, forced the vulpine against the door to his house, and smothered her with the most drawn out oral-connection she had experienced with him, and she muffled out laughs the whole time between her flexing jaws.

Despite the heated mess, Mangle still managed to preoccupy herself with the 'Beam of Doomz' and made hand/foot puppets with her pipes as she coned the light on the side of Phil's car.

And from Phillip's point of view, whilst Mangle was distracted, he disconnected from Foxy, keeping his arms curled around her furred waist, he couldn't stop smiling, beaming at her with shining eyes, and this wasn't too say Foxy wasn't reciprocating.

The animatronic had the expression of sheer joy on her features, she flexed her paws on his back and shoulders, nudging forwards until they were connected via forehead.

The week, they all supposed, hadn't ended so badly after all.

"I'm so ecstatic right now," Phillip said. "-I really REALLY am, Fox'."

"Phillip, I don't care if it's been a week," Foxy stated. "-I'm staying with you..."

"I'd hope so," Phillip chuckled. "I wanna take this like a REAL relationship, Fox'. I'm gonna talk to you, I'm gonna tell you things, and listen to you, and I'm going to understand you one-hundred percent."

"-And hug me and kiss me and name me George?"

"Maybe not the last part, eh?"

"Phillip, I'm in love with you," Foxy sighed. "-I'm in LOVE with you."

"I am going to make you a queen, you know that?"

"Screw difference in species..."

"You can say that again."

In fact, it was the best fragging week of their lives.

It all started with a part-time job offer, an opportunity to be a boring guard who was under threat from a bunch of things that were not supposed to be alive.

It all started so simply, and then it devolved, and EVOLVED, into a battle of justice and chaos.

While two heroes had been lost in the final push to end the evil, three more had emerged, and they weren't exactly going down against any obstacles that might present themselves in the far future.

It all started without a care for the future, and now, there was a LOT of caring, because this future looked bright.

Really bright.

And it was unrestrained, no longer limited to the forced ceramic view of a handful of Camera Angles.

Funny how that all worked out, huh?

**_-0-0-0-0-0-_**

**_FIN_**

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**_EPILOGUE_**

In the blackness of the late night, behind the thin, translucent screen of a wire mesh fencing, there was a great clank of hollow metal, crumbling of plaster, and snapping of wood.

From the pile of scorched remnants, a horrible gasp of dusty, unused lungs plagued the atmosphere, and something jerked, rubber walloped, a black piece of ragged debris was flung out of the mound of rubble, stone and plastic fell away in a miniature avalanche.

With a final burst of masonry dust, a hunched shape slowly sat up from within the piles of rubbish, cricked a head that, from the shadows, looked longer than natural.

There was a voice, laced with the grind of stones being dragged along each others' sides, and tinged with a kiss of ragged static.

"-Agh, so THIS, is what I get for a bit of a leave... Eh?"

Long, ape-like limbs made from multiple wraps of wire entangled over welded metal pistons and machinery, uncurled from the thing's sides, and stretched into the air as the creature sighed from the moved joints.

"That's the spot... Alright then, upsy-daisy!" Two legs in similar construction to the arms, unfurled from its waist line in the mound of burnt remains, reaching forwards to dig three toe-like suction cup protrusions into the ground.

They pulled the creature two steps forwards, and another set of these legs dragged out from where the monster had been partially buried, forming a quad set that transported it stiffly over the multiple bevels in the piles of scrap.

"For shame that this haven's a burnt skidd-mark... 'Stupid son of a bitch couldn't keep his head on against a plebian! Ha!"

Shaking its welded, bulky body like a dog, the monster loosed off a cloud of soot, sending chunks of plaster and wood in all directions, like a small hail storm.

"What's this?" It muttered, reaching the gate to the mesh fence, and taking the pad-lock in its left claw, with three fingers made from bolted plates of steel. "-Friggin' humans..."

**_CLK_**

It squeezed its fist over the lock, crushed it like a wad of tin-foil, and let the crumbled, ringing remains skitter away on the dark pavement at its feet.

"I LOVE the fresh night smell of pine-trees! MMMHmmm!"

It pushed its palms into the gate, and they squeaked ajar, knocking over a sign reading 'AWAITING DOZER' that had been stood up on a small metal stand before the entry. The creature stepped out into the vacant parking lot, and yawned its long, reptilian, mechanical head.

"Almost wish I had eyes... EYES, eyes... Not this stupid echo-locat-HEY! Whadda-we have here then..."

Reaching down, it picked up a little top hat, colored black, and licked by a small glance of fire damage.

The monster sighed, expelling another puff of dust from its unused internals.

"Agh, for the luvva-Pete! Boy's really dead ain't he? FINE! Fine..." It uncurled its fingers, and let the little top hat flutter back down onto the pavement. "-The job's vacant then..."

With its multiple rows of metal, daggered teeth, the long, eyeless head of the being bowed lower in humor.

"I'll do it myself."


End file.
